


From A to B

by PhelfromGrace



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst and Humor, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, F/M, Slice of Life, grey a rey, pornstar kylo ren, slowburn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-13
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2018-07-14 17:59:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 35,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7184300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhelfromGrace/pseuds/PhelfromGrace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kylo Ren may be a top star in the adult entertainment industry, but Ben Solo knew nothing about making love. Grey-A Rey simply wants to survive her first year of college. Modern AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Breakups and Breakdowns

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: A bit of explicit content due to Ren's occupation, but nothing too graphic (hopefully).

There is a common saying that bad things happen in threes. Rey couldn't believe such bullshit, not only due to the lack of empirical evidence, but mostly because her current predicament hinted that the scolding she had endured by her asshole manager was not going to be the professed third final stroke of ill fate in her shitty day. She was absolutely certain that the fourth affront was hanging off the tip of his tongue.

"I'm sorry, Rey. I can't do this anymore. Let's break up."

The sharp protrusion at the end of her trash picker pierced into an empty can, then was thrust into a plastic bag with unnecessary force. Eyes trained to the ground, staring at the other garbage victims, she took her time to decide which to stab next. Somehow the screams in the distance of patrons on rollercoaster rides seemed more prominent than the voice two feet away from her. Her gaze however shifted upon hearing high-pitched laughter from a couple sitting on a park bench a few feet away, eating from the same ice cream cone. Rey wanted to smash the offensive dessert in their happy faces.

"It felt like we were just friends," Finn, her now ex-boyfriend, continued. "I'm feeling confused about...things... I think it's better if we just went back to what we were before."

"It's about the sex, isn't it?" she blurted out, but still did not look in his direction. "Did you get bored because I stopped having sex with you? Or is it because I find porn absolutely ridiculous and didn't want to watch it when you said that you wanted to show me something." The couple in mid-lick of their ice cream flinched at the alarming voice. Seeing the angry girl holding a pick like a weapon, they promptly got up and left.

"What are you saying, Rey? That has nothing to do with—"

"Whatever. Just leave. It's not like this all comes as a surprise..." _You were going to leave me in the end like they always do_ , she finished saying in her head. "I have work to do. I'm not about to get yelled at again by Plutt, on my last shift of the season, for slacking because of this stupid conversation."

"Rey, can you just give me a moment to explain?"

She finally looked up at him, eyes brimming with tears. "The outcome is the same. I'm fed up of this too. Get out of my face before I do something really inappropriate with this pick and get banned from working here next summer." She held up the trash picker over her head like a warrior staff and Finn put up his arms on instinct. They stared at each other for a moment, her teeth clenched and his muscles tensed, contrasting greatly from their surroundings, of gay merry-go-round music and children playing wildly with a poor part-timer in a mascot suit. Finn slowly lowered his arms and conceded. Rey did the same and went back to picking up trash, again not looking his way.

"Just know that I'm not changing my phone number. You can call me any time," he gently said. " I know I messed this up... but I still don't want to throw away our ten years of friendship over barely a year in a relationship. I know that it also messes up our moving plans and you have every reason to be super angry at me. I'm such an idiot for dragging this out until now. .. I'm really sorry, Rey."

She continued to work, not once lifting her head to look at Finn. If her manager Plutt was observing from the distance, he would have assumed that some crazy guy was talking to himself.

Finn sighed. "I'll see you later when you're ready to forgive me."

Rey listened to his footsteps fade into the distance, then dropped her tools and collapsed onto the park bench. Watching the kids now full-out assaulting the mascot, she was reminded of the first time she had visited this amusement park. Just like the way the kids were pulling at the mascot's head, mounting its back and kicking its shins, her childhood classmates had also been cruel.

On that day, the bullies were bothering one of the weaker kids over something trivial, and when Rey decided to step in, they turned on her, three against one. They called her names, mocked her until her patience ran dry and she retaliated physically. One of them was about to throw a punch from behind that she readied to deflect, but the park mascot emerged out of nowhere: the towering creature grabbed the kid by the scruff of the neck and threw him in the nearby fountain pond. It was totally unnecessary because she could hold her own, even at age nine, but the gesture filled her with awe and dare she say happiness. She had stared long and hard at the mascot, thinking it was a creature from a galaxy far away, and not some underpaid reckless part-timer that was probably a college dropout.

Finn deserved to be shoved in a pond.... or left on a desert planet.

\------  
***

A threesome is a bad idea when you're paired with your most hated colleague. Kylo Ren couldn't believe the bullshit predicament he had to endure, stuck with the rear of some standard porn chick while Hux handled the front end of things, for the third take in a row because the incompetent director could not give proper instructions for the stupid vision of the scene. He was absolutely certain that the fourth cut was on its way.

"Cut!" the director shouted, and Ren bit his tongue to hold back his scream of frustration. "Ren, can you give it more passion? Maybe grab Hux's ass when you connect. I want to feel the romance!"

Ren clenched his fist. _Romance?_ They were shooting a porno, not some fuckin' love scene in a chick flick.

They readied to repeat the scene, all parties rather annoyed by the broken rhythm. Standing upright, the double penetration got particularly uncomfortable when Ren felt Hux through the chick, their noses almost making contact as they pounded at the same time, bringing their bodies ever so closer. Their faces met over the girl's shoulder and Ren could see the hatred in Hux's clear blue eyes, almost being able to read his mind and hear the profanity that he was thinking. Ren's hand twitched with aversion before grabbing his ass half-heartedly.

"Cut! This isn't working. Let's take it from another angle."

The quiet chatter of the staff at the back of the room seemed all the more prominent to Ren's sensitive big ears; he could clearly hear every gossiping word and he wanted to make them shut up. He also wanted to kill Hux. With those two goals in mind, Ren would deliver a scene that could make the entire audience shiver in fear or titillation.

Using all the force he could muster, he channelled his anger through the act of driving his saber into the girl, slashing through to reach Hux. He threw away all composure, everything that he had learned in the last decade, and simply let his emotions dictate his actions. Her insides clenched, the spasms having an effect on the ginger bastard as his blue eyes momentarily rolled back. Ren pounded deeply, forcefully, grabbing his colleague's ass for support and squeezing so hard that it would likely leave a bruised imprint. With his other hand, he shoved three fingers up Hux's asshole, secretly wishing that the bastard wasn't properly douched and would embarrassingly soil himself.

The scene simply ended with the girl's shrill scream of a climax that echoed across the silent studio. Both Ren and Hux pulled out to cum all over the floor, a tacit agreement that there would be no more takes for the day.

Staff rushed to offer assistance to the actors and the usual chatter recommenced. Ren rudely grabbed the bathrobe that was handed to him, and then stormed off to an empty dressing room. Not bothering to switch on the light, he slumped into the makeup chair and pulled at the roots of his black wavy hair, trying to ease the headache pounding in his brain. He sat there for quite some time, chanting a mantra of kinematic equations under his breath while focusing on the rhythm of his accelerated heartbeat that did not seem to calm down. Footsteps echoed further down the hall, and Ren's acute hearing piped up at the sound of Hux's grating voice.

"Sir, I must apologize on behalf of First Order Agency. Ren is not exactly one for romance. He is, dare I say, a bit stunted when it comes to _normal_ human behaviour. He simply has no concept of love."

Ren breathed heavily and continued to tug at his hair.

"While I certainly agree that he knows nothing about romance, the last take was excellent. His raw talent makes up for his cold heart. He has very passionate eyes."

"Oh, yes indeed, I agree that he has talent. I was not trying to _badmouth_ him or anything. I simply wanted to _ensure_ that he was not misunderstood in case you thought he was a bit _deranged_. You see, he has led quite the pitiful existence, ignored by his parents as a child, not loved by anyone, especially his father..."

Their voices became muffled as Ren tuned out the sound, completely triggered by the f-word. He grabbed the first thing that his hand could reach, an expensive hairdryer, and chucked it straight into the mirror before him.

The mirror shattered violently, cascading down in shards that reflected the little light seeping in from the door ajar. Ren stormed out, heavy footed, barrelling through a group of stylists that promptly jumped to the side, nearly crashing into the wall to get out of his way. He found his clothes and removed his robe in a fluid motion, caring no mind to the gasps of onlookers. He got dressed in his neck-to-toe black attire, and ditched the set before being formally dismissed.

If he stayed any longer, Hux would have more than a bruised ass and asshole.

\------  
***

Rey returned to her dingy closet of an apartment with tired limbs and a heavier heart. Kicking off her dirty brown boots, she headed to her kitchenette and crouched to open the mini-fridge. Eating at such a late hour was generally not recommended, but it wasn't like her fridge was properly stocked for a hearty meal anyway. Her dinner that night would be bread and water; she could not even afford the luxury of butter.

The bread was stale but ripped from her teeth as she bit hard, and chewed even harder, while washing it down with gulps of tap water that she drank from a recycled mason jar. She looked around the room she called home; it may have been small, but she had tried her best to decorate it with things that she liked. Finn was one of those things, evidenced by the many photographs of him hung on the wall, taken from various stages of their teenage life. Those would probably be left behind when she had to move from this place.

Her meal ended before it barely begun, leaving her with nothing much to do but mull over her thoughts. Thinking of the events of the day, she decided to try something that had been plaguing the back of her mind.

She walked to her desk and flipped open her second-hand twice-repaired laptop. While the computer booted up, its fan working on overdrive upon seconds of turning on, Rey stripped down to change into her sleeping attire, and then went into her cramped bathroom to brush her teeth. There was no mirror for her hazel eyes to inspect the new dry patches on her suntanned skin, nor to judge the wiry mess of brown hair as she loosened her signature three buns. Hearing the distinct chime of the operating system finally booted, she returned to her desk, sat down on the uncomfortable wooden chair— albeit a good find from dumpster diving— and opened the internet tab.

For the first time in her twenty-one years of life , Rey searched for porn.

The first hits linked to a general main website that contained short explicit content uploaded by the masses, not that she would be able to differentiate between pro or amateur. She wasn't sure what she should be looking for, so she chose the easiest route of 'most popular'.

After fifteen minutes of watching awkwardly-sized body parts in contorted positions making ungodly noises, her preconception did not change in the least. While a conservative person may have found it obscene, Rey was simply bored and rather confused by some of the weird deviations. One of the top searches featured this dude with ears too big and lips too full, fucking a girl from behind while grabbing nearby household items and throwing them around like some temper tantrum. _What was the appeal?_ She clicked on one last video before officially giving up.

The video started out fairly mysterious which piqued her curiosity. There was the standard ridiculous moaning, but the actors were oddly cast in shadows. Towards the climax, however, the hood that hid the male porn star's face was shaken off by the force of his thrusts, revealing a certain person that made Rey's blood boil. At the sight of Mr. Emo-Big-Ears again, she instinctively tried to retract her decision, clicking the back button one too many times, and too fast for her decrepit laptop to actually process the command.

"Oh no, shit."

It malfunctioned, making the screen freeze on a close-up frame of the dude in mid-thrust, his engorged cock in plain view. She had not paid attention to the actor's name, but she certainly would not forget it now as she averted her eyes to other parts of the screen, mainly to the description of the video so that she wouldn't have to stare at the monster above. The laptop then went dead to her horror yet relief. She tried to turn it back on, but the computer remained a cold brick, sucked of its life from the offensive last deed she made it perform. Her only consolation was that if the machine was sufficiently dead, the evidence of her search would forever be buried. It would also be the last affront of the day, unless something extra happened in the following ten minutes.

Midnight thankfully passed without any further complication. That night, she tried to masturbate, but got tired and fell asleep. She dreamed of hooded creatures.

\------  
***

Kylo Ren returned to his spacious condo with a pounding headache and an unsettled heart. Removing his leather boots and placing them neatly to the side, he headed to his bedroom bathroom and undressed once more. Showering at such a late hour was not recommended for his naturally curly hair—the bedhead would be terrible in the morning— but he couldn't ignore the call of his well-equipped shower. His routine that night would be long and thorough; he could afford the water bill and it was the only activity that could somewhat soothe his mind.

He shampooed twice, massaging his scalp in small circles, then conditioned and let it set for a long time before rinsing. Steam engulfed the room and condensed over the wide mirror above a chrome sink, while the sound of pelting water like torrential rain echoed in the space. Once sufficiently rinsed, he exited the shower with a black towel wrapped around his narrow hips, and reached into a cabinet containing numerous products lined in a row. Shaking the can of mousse and squeezing it out on his large palm, he stroked the white foam through damp locks and picked up the hairdryer, turning it on full blast. As the air circulated in the room, the mirror un-fogged to reveal the tired face of Ben Solo, his dark eyes glazed and not processing his reflection. With deft fingers, he braided the top of his head to ensure that his hair would not be a complete flat mess in the morning.

Even though the water washed away his headache, Ben still had one knot tangling his thoughts. He looked to the small antique picture frame sitting on a corner table in his bedroom, but decided to head to the living room instead. He sat down on the uncomfortable but good-looking black leather couch and turned on his widescreen smart TV.

For the first time in his thirty-one years of life, Ben Solo watched a romantic comedy.

The plot was mere fiction: fabricated, predictable, hollow, like everything else in the world. He would have long given up on the movie if it weren't for the pretty brunette actress with hazel eyes and an intensity that he wished existed in real life. One of the scenes involved the male lead following the girl like a stalker, and touching her when she didn't seem interested. _Was this romantic?_ After an hour of the repetitive chase, he questioned why these things had to be so long and decided that, no matter how pretty the actress was and despite somewhat relating to the main lead's bad decisions, his opinion of these types of movies would not change.

"It's not any different from porn," he said out loud, a deep grumble to an empty audience. "Fake, gratuitous, raising impossible standards, a simple farce."

That night, he lightly jerked off but nothing came. He laid awake, thinking of romance and hazel eyes with spit-fire intensity. He did not sleep.


	2. Into the Light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Rey receives all the luck that Ren desperately needs.

A screwdriver hit the ground in a loud thud and rolled on the worn-out hardwood floor to settle under an ancient grandfather clock. Despite being surrounded by antiques of high value, all of the very fragile objects made of glass and ceramic were thankfully stowed far away from Rey's messy workspace. She got up from her chair with a sigh, crouched down and slid her slender arm between the feet of the clock to reach for her tool. 

"You alright, kid?" a gruff voice sounded from across the shop. "That's the third time you dropped something."

"Sorry," Rey answered, getting hold of the screwdriver. "Just a bit distracted."

"Hmm. That's unlike you." He paused, then his tone deepened. "Is it boy trouble? Someone bothering you that needs to get taken care of?"

She chuckled fondly. "It's nothing like that, you know I can handle them myself... but you're half-right. Finn broke up with me and we were supposed to move into the city together. I'm now scrambling to find an affordable place to rent for one person."

"You're moving? Well that's news to your employer."

"Han, I told you that I'm only here for the summer. We even celebrated over drinks when I received my college acceptance letter."

Before Han Solo could utter another sassy remark, the door chimed as a customer walked in. He immediately perked up from his stool and entered salesman-mode. Rey went back to fixing a vintage typewriter and tried not to feel sad about the fact that it would be the last time, in a very long while, that she would be able to touch and fix such old treasures. 

"My buddy Chewie got it straight from the desert lands of Tatooine. You're really lookin' at the only one in the whole world." The customer, although definitely intrigued by the item, was being wishy-washy and continued to shoot questions like gunfire. Rey could tell that they were not an easy sell, but Han was handling it like a true veteran. After twenty minutes of negotiation, he however had enough. "Look, we're nearly closing and my wife wants me home, so I'll cut you a deal. I'll put it on hold for ya, no deposit. Sleep on it and come back in a few days. If you want it, it's yours. If not, I'll put it back on the shelf for someone else to snap up. With something this rare and unique, I'm in no rush 'cause it's bound to go up in value."

The buyer fumbled with words, quickly insisting that they'd like to put down the deposit in cash. They would be back tomorrow to pay for the rest. "Pleasure doing business! See you again." Han locked the front door behind the customer, then flipped the makeshift sign to 'close'.

He sauntered over to Rey who was not in a rush to leave, her tools and parts still splayed all over her work bench. 

"Y'know, was it Takodana where you're studying at? I know someone that could give you a room, free of rent."

Rey looked up at him with eyes that said he was being dodgy again and that she would not get conned like that customer. Han, not taking notice to the silent cue, continued his offer. "There's a building owned by my old friend, Maz Kanata. It used to be my building, but I gave it to her to pay off a debt. There's a room there that should be vacant because...well, it's a long story, so I won't get into it—point being, I'll give her a call to tell her you're coming. Sounds good?"

Her sceptical frown shifted to a look of pure awe, but quickly retracted. "Han, don't worry about me, I'll be fine on my own. Finding an affordable place will be no problem. It's just taking me time which is why I'm a bit distracted, but I'll manage in the end. I can't take your offer."

"Yes, you can," he implored. "Look, if you feel indebted, be sure to come back next summer and work for me again." Han searched his front vest pocket for a pen and notepad, then jotted down some contact information that he handed to her. "Don't be strangers, Rey. Come visit us whenever you've got time off, and definitely come for the holidays. Leia's been nagging about the house being too empty during those times. Do me the favour. Take the room." 

He smiled crookedly, and she returned the gesture with a wide one showing all her pearly straight teeth. She knew that saying thank you would just get brushed off, so she simply nodded.

"Lock up whenever you're done. Keep the keys since you'll be back next summer."

Rey watched his back leave, one arm lifted with a waving hand to say goodbye. The light shone through the dusty windows of the storefront and casted a halo-like glow around his retreating form. He looked like a hero walking into the sunset.

 

\------  
***

On the top floor of First Order Agency, the spacious head office remained colder and darker than other parts of the building. A single projector mounted from the high ceiling aimed its sole dim light to a screen that hung before a long board meeting table. Ren stood at the head, eyes locked on the vast white screen but using his peripheral vision to observe the technician at work in the corner of the room. Fumbling with wire connections and occasionally wiping their sweaty palms against the front of their pants, the technician eventually readied the incoming video call and scurried out the door with their head down, not looking back to witness the gaunt yet intimidating face that now covered the screen. 

"Kylo Ren," the deep voice rumbled from the surround speakers. "I have heard of your most recent endeavours. It appears that you have put on quite the performance, and lost your composure doing so. From what Hux has reported, it seems that the circumstances got a bit _personal_."

Ren remained silent and let his Leader continue. Hux tattling was nothing new, but letting himself get affected by the snot was such a waste of energy.

"It certainly grabbed my attention, so I asked the director for the footage. What a curious performance it was. Although intense and not unlike your usual delivery, it was filled with something else, something dangerous, something _raw_ that could only be derived from deep within. It was emotion, a hint of passion akin to romantic longing. Your heart is being swayed."

"Never," Ren answered stoically. "I was simply following instructions and acting accordingly. Had I known of the director's intent, I would have avoided the project altogether."

"Avoidance. Such a tactic is never the solution. I have seen and trained many stars that have fallen, given up on the industry, even after they had made the effort of avoiding projects that could spark that light, that seducing desire for intimacy. They were not treating the problem at its source. Remember what I have taught you."

"Men and women are objects," he intoned on cue. " There is no sentiment in the act."

"Indeed. Never forget that if one confuses the act with reality, whether feeling any sort of emotion towards their colleagues or worse, attempting to tie themselves in a web of intimacy with relations outside of their work, they will not survive in this industry. 

"You are made for this, Kylo Ren. There is no career, no life outside this world that could suit you better. The life that you have left behind will not greet you back with open arms. It no longer exists."

Ren did not flinch at the proclamation, since it was probably true. "I will not be tempted. There is no need for concern."

The face on the screen remained impassive. "That is reassuring to hear because there is a project ahead of you, a challenge that may put your resolve to the test. An acquaintance of mine is directing an independent erotica film and I have referred you to him. It will require moving across the country, to the temperate lands of Takodana, where you will spend a year on the project. Arrangements for your travel and accommodation have been made. You leave in a week."

Ren clenched his fist, but otherwise kept composure. "I will do everything that is asked, using your teachings as support."

"We shall see the outcome. We shall see." By the nod and pause from his Leader, Ren understood that he was being dismissed; he politely returned a shallow bow and turned to leave. As the door closed shut, the impassive face broke into a wide grin. The screen went black, enveloping the room in complete darkness.

 

\------  
***

Moving day involved more cleaning than actual moving. With only a knapsack on her back, Rey walked out the rundown apartment building carrying four large garbage bags containing the rest of the contents of the room she once called home. It had all been junk to begin with. Throwing each bag one by one in the dumpster bin beside the building, she felt a sense of relief and renewal. There would be no more frustrating old laptop that took ages to boot up, or beat-up bicycle with gears that could collapse if she pedalled too fast. The latter had actually gotten stolen on the same day Finn broke up with her, which was the reason why she was late for her shift and consequently yelled at by Plutt, but it was kind of her fault since she never locked it in the first place. 

She massaged her shoulders after the heavy lifting, and reached into her pocket to take out the one salvaged item that was precious to her: an old cellphone with an orange and white faceplate that she had found on the ground near the amusement park, its data wiped beyond repair and therefore impossible to trace back to its original owner. It took her months to fix the phone and find a suitable charger for this old model called BB-8. She searched her contacts and deleted one of the three people on the list. With no regrets, she headed off to her new destination. 

**

After four hours of trains, buses and walking, Rey stood in front of a quaint Victorian-style building, five stories high by the number of ascending bay windows that she counted as she looked up. The red brick facade was slightly overgrown with vines of morning glory, not quite in bloom since it was well past the early hours of the day. Greenery made her heart swell, but she hoped that the particular flower was not an ominous sign for things to come.

The front door opened before Rey had the chance to find the buzzer, and she was confronted by a very short elderly woman with curious bottle-cap glasses giving her a once-over. "You must be Rey!" the woman greeted loudly. "Come on in, I'll show you to the room."

Metal bangles clinked on a thin wrinkly wrist as she gestured for the startled Rey to enter the threshold. "Hope you don't mind climbing stairs because this old building has no elevator. Typical Solo, not bothering to make the place accessible, but I don't blame him. I haven't changed a thing in the fifteen years I've owned the place." 

For a woman of her age and build, Maz Kanata had spunk and it was no wonder that she was friends with the dashing Han Solo. Rey was not the best conversationalist, but the few minutes it took to get to the fifth floor were never silent. Only when they reached the door of her new home, Maz's demeanor suddenly became serious. She looked straight into Rey's hazel eyes.

"This room may break or inspire you," she warned. "It has been left untouched ever since I acquired the building... the spirit of its past still lingers. I can tell by your eyes that you are a lonely person, Rey. Don't let yourself get stuck in the past like this room. Meet real people, build connections with the present." 

Maz unlocked the door, ushering her in. She handed Rey the key, and reached up to put a hand on her shoulder. "Look ahead." 

The girl took the advice literally, looking straight at the room before her and not noticing the elder woman slipping away until the click of the door woke her from the momentary trance. The space was breathtaking. With soft light radiating through threadbare curtains, the layers of dust that one would normally consider repulsive instead added to the atmosphere, making the scene appear like a vintage albumen photograph yellowed over time. It looked twenty times bigger than her previous closet apartment, but the generous space nevertheless felt warm and cozy. Best of all, it smelled like the antique shop that she loved so much.

One wall was covered with tall bookcases, each shelf packed with tomes of knowledge and literature. Even the top shelves that Rey preferred leaving empty were housed with more books and other useful items. The previous occupant must have been tall or desperate for space efficiency; she would have to re-organize them since they were out of reach for her average height. Looking closely at the titles of the books, she could not contain her excitement and spoke out loud to herself, or maybe to BB-8.

"I won't need to buy any books this semester." She cracked open one of the textbooks, checking for the publication date. "Twenty years ago... That's a bit old, but it should be fine for basic physics. It's not like the theories have changed since then."

A few shelves were entirely devoted to music which was quite foreign to Rey, not because she didn't know what it was, but because she simply never had the luxury of the technology growing up. 

"Anger Against the Engine... MaiZe... Bimp Lizket... What weird names."

Curious to learn more about the previous occupant, she turned to the wardrobe. A few out-of-place items on the top of the dresser, namely eyeliner and numerous hair products, made her think that the ex-owner was female, but upon opening the first drawer, she was confronted by socks and boxer shorts that seemed too male for even the most tomboy of girls. Rey also found odd jeans that were wide enough for her waist to fit through one pant-leg; the size however did not seem to match the thin waistband of the boxers. 

Concluding that profiling was futile, she started to clean and tidy up the place to better suit her use. Rey planned on keeping most of the things, aside from the awful wide-legged pants and expired makeup.

 

\------  
***

Kylo Ren opened the door to his new apartment and flinched at the intense sunlight bouncing off cream-coloured walls and pale oak parquetry. His luggage dropped to the ground as his grip went limp, instinctively rushing to the glass balcony doors and drawing the curtains so hard that the metal rings screeched against the rod. The light however still filtered in appreciably and the rather sheer drapery casted the room in a bluish hue. Slipping off his boots and placing them near the entrance, he then picked up his luggage and carried it into the bedroom which was also bathed in light, much to his irritation. He began to unpack, transferring clothes to the closet, toiletry to the ensuite bathroom, antique photo frame to a dark drawer at his bedside table. 

He walked back into the living room to survey the scene once more. The agency had arranged his housing which was a huge mistake in hindsight. There was simply too much stuff: numerous throw pillows on a navy velvet sofa, ornate side tables holding matching Victorian-style lamps, a coffee table with a bowl of fuckin' potpourri, no television or electronics, all wood and no metal. He took a deep breath.

Storming back into the bedroom, he rifled through his newly organised wardrobe to retrieve a black hoodie, sweats, and trainers that he quickly changed into. He pulled the hood over his head and exited the wretched place.

**

Running had never been a routine activity of his, but it was an effective way to stifle thoughts and dispense pent-up energy. His long legs took him to the end of his street, down another, and certainly never turning on the one that housed a five-story red-bricked apartment complex. He passed a kid's playground containing tall metal slides, precarious teeter-totters, rope jungle gyms, a pole for tetherball— the old equipment that had not changed ever since... 

He picked up his speed, blurring past more foliage until reaching the intersection of a main street lined with various shops. Looking into the distance, he barely registered what he was running past, but nevertheless caught the scent of baked goods wafting from a coffee shop and he made a mental note of visiting it on another day. 

The mental note however sparked activity in his brain, which spiralled into other thoughts that Ren countered by pushing his body further, running at a pace that could not be maintained by the common folk. He dodged a few delivery mopeds illegally parked on the sidewalk, weaved past some slow walkers with their dogs barking at the sudden intrusion, and finally ended the stretch of the street to merge into a quiet park filled with trees and general greenery. An unsettling feeling somewhere from deep within tried to escape and internalize in his brain once more. It became difficult to control, to push back into the recesses of his mind; he ran faster and faster, depriving his lungs of oxygen to the point where his vision started to blur and he became lightheaded. 

His body could no longer handle the abuse: his six foot three frame collapsed onto the grass, chest heaving desperately for air, with the feelings and thoughts trampling over his weakened state. A few of those feelings he could not yet put into words, but there was one that he recognised all too well. It was the urge for a line or a drag, or something to shoot— which was utter madness because he had not touched that shit in nearly a decade, even endured years of rehab to overcome the temptation. Joining the agency had been his ultimate salvation, his newly forged raison d'être; he could not falter now after signing both a literal and figurative contract.

With heavy feet, he brought his dejection back to the bright apartment. A firm kick at one of the extraneous side tables made it topple over, the gaudy lamp crashing to the floor and a wooden leg snapping off cleanly like a joint popping out of its socket. Having no energy to wreck it further, Ben slumped to the ground with his palms covering his eyes to block the annoying light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos to anyone that understood the band references.


	3. Fire at the Crossroad

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Ren fails at flirting.

The morning queue at the coffee shop on the main street snaked outside the door, but Rey was not deterred since there was nowhere else that could beat its quality while suiting her meager budget. She therefore stood patiently in line, rehearsing her order in her head and not needing to review the price on the menu board that was routinely blocked by the tall regular a few heads in front of her. When it finally came her turn, the barista smiled in recognition and prepared her beverage without saying a word, much to Rey's surprise. Even if time permitted, there was no need to linger among the crowd at the self-service stand for extra cream, milk or sugar; she preferred it black. Paying and nodding a thanks, she weaved passed the other customers to exit the shop and rush to her morning classes. 

Coffee sloshed but did not spill as she speed-walked to the end of the street, then took a shortcut through a park to arrive at the college where she chained herself to an uncomfortable plastic chair for hours upon hours of lecture after lecture. Rey went from holding a pen in a quiet classroom, to then wielding a hedge cutter in the open air of the gardens at a nearby historical house. She juggled school and part-time work on a daily basis, slipping in study sessions whenever and wherever in between— sometimes at a picnic table in the park, other times in the waiting area at the laundromat, and most times in the evenings at the coffee shop. 

The shop at night was not as crowded as the morning, but every table was nevertheless occupied. Rey vaguely recognized some of the regulars without actually looking at them properly, like the zombie student that had a tendency of slurping his drink loudly, or the tall man that blocked the menu board every morning, who currently seemed in deep concentration on something that he was reading. Staring mindlessly at the stiff broad shoulders of his back, she realised that nearly ten minutes had elapsed and she knew the number of ribs on his black knit sweater, but not the number of significant figures required for the answer in her chemistry homework. Packing up her books but keeping her notes at hand, she swung her bag over her shoulder and headed home. 

She continued to read her notes under subtle streetlight, and became so engrossed in the activity that she passed her street, walking a fair way down while taking a wrong turn that lead to an unfamiliar part of the neighborhood. Before turning around to retrace her steps, her scavenger instincts suddenly kicked in as her eye caught a piece of furniture in fair condition, left at the side of a higher-end apartment complex and not in its designated dumpster bin. The small table looked like it had been abandoned for a few weeks judging by the thick layer of grime; she dusted it off with her sleeve, to reveal beautiful rose-patterned marquetry on the top surface. Its only fault was a broken leg that seemed like an easy fix. What a waste to leave this piece to rot, she thought. Stuffing her notes along with the ornate wooden leg in her bag, she hauled the table back to her abode. 

Climbing five flights of stairs with the cumbersome load turned out to be the easier of tasks compared to Rey's search for some tools; she refused to believe that anyone's apartment would lack a simple hammer and screwdriver. Beads of sweat ran down her face as she took down the fifth heavy box from the top shelf of the walk-in storage closet, the one area of the apartment that she had been procrastinating cleaning up. She stepped down from her stool to place the box on the ground and quickly surveyed its contents. Seeing that it was once again packed with papers, just like the other four boxes, she climbed back up to retrieve another. 

The next box was a little bigger, and underestimating the repeated strain, Rey's hand cramped. She lost grip of the cardboard and the whole fell to the floor in a crash, spilling out more papers, notebooks, and something silver. Upon closer inspection, the shiny cylindrical item proved to be a fountain pen.

She picked up one of the nearby papers to test it, and to her delight, the pen left behind a beautiful smooth line of blue that she continued to flick around, leaving more marks, until getting distracted by the words actually written on the paper. The words turned into sentences, and then paragraphs as she read the whole page of what appeared to be a snippet of a fictional novel. She checked the other boxes and leafed through notebooks and thick wads of paper, all with the title heading _Celestial Conflicts_. Most of it was writing, but the author also included some hilariously awful crude drawings of the characters.

Rey laughed out loud, voice a little hoarse from disuse for the past few weeks. Sitting amidst the mound of literary treasure, it felt like she had uncovered someone's secret. A wave of nostalgia hit her as she recalled the other times that she had found awesome things, how it had filled her with joy, and how she would spend hours recounting her tales to her dear friend... Finn. 

Her smile vanished, and Rey suddenly remembered that the pizza place on the main street was looking for a part-timer. She should probably drop in tomorrow to leave an application.

 _Don't let yourself get stuck in the past... Make connections with the present._

Maybe she would take next Saturday night off to go to a bar and meet new people, or something. 

 

\------  
***

Kylo Ren believed that all of his luck and fortune had been wasted at birth. Staring at the hypnotic whirl of coloured garments tumbling in dryers, with a strong grip on the handles of his basket of freshly-washed but wet laundry, he realised that this mundane situation really was a metaphor of his life these days: infinite wait for a result that was not particularly fulfilling. His contract in Takodana may only last a year, but then a different annoying project was bound to pile in and the cycle would repeat once more, like these weekly visits to the laundromat. The only difference would be the location: he would likely be back in Stellacida, with its colder climate that allowed him to wear thicker attire requiring dry cleaning, instead of the casual clothes and sweats suited for Takodana's heat and frustration.

One of the machines finally stopped swirling and Ren immediately looked to the waiting area where the few people that were seated did not budge. A middle-aged woman, presumably a mother, seemed rather fixated on her newspaper crossword puzzle, and the girl wearing headphones from the 1990s—he swore he once owned a similar pair— was furiously taking notes from her heavily bookmarked textbook. A decent person would have approached the strangers and kindly informed them that the laundry from dryer number four was complete, but Ren instead wrenched the machine door open and proceeded to remove its contents. He took out boy boxer shorts, a few t-shirts, the type that he would have worn as a teen, then white cotton panties, and sandy-coloured 32A bras; he glanced back at the mother and concluded that she must have a few teenagers at home. After filling their basket and clearing the dryer, he shoved his damp clothes in the machine, started it up with some coins, and promptly left the place. 

He walked aimlessly around the neighborhood , his mind adrift and drawing blanks at the problematic areas of the script he had to memorize. If he did a good job, maybe he could leave Takodana faster than its appointed timeframe, and reduce the risk of running into anyone that he didn't want to see. Forty minutes of wandering steps and thoughts quickly passed, while no answers to his problems had been found. He returned to the laundromat to instead find dry clothes and a bright sticky note with untidy handwriting.

_You could have said something, asshole._

Thinking back at the people in the waiting area, Ren remembered the bright-coloured bookmarks in the textbook. It was the girl. He crumpled the note, letting it fall to the ground, then collected his things and headed back to his apartment.

**

The newly installed blackout curtains alleviated his sour mood, but the rest of the shitty clutter was unfortunately there to stay because the sublet did not allow refurnishing, and the hefty fine he had to pay for the broken lamp and side table told him to endure. Ren dropped his clean clothes in his bedroom, then went back to the living room to study his script. With the daylight blocked, the only indication of elapsing time was the arms of a mechanical clock that travelled many quadrants and made more progress than the blanks he was supposed to fill on his script. His phone suddenly rang, a sound so foreign that he almost did not recognize it. 

He picked up, thinking that the unknown number might be the director who he had yet to meet. 

"Hey dipshit."

"Excuse me?" Ren quickly placed the voice. "Phasma. How did you get my number?"

"Our Supreme Leader gave it to me, not that I asked, mind you." 

"How kind of him. And what brings your grace at this late hour? If you have called just to mock me and laugh at my frustrating predicament, I am in no mood to humour you. I'm going to hang up."

"Always the optimist, it's nice to hear that some things never change. I'm calling because you are cordially invited to the opening of my new film. Come if you'd like, or don't. It honestly makes no difference to me, but I'm just extending the invite to comply with orders from above. We'll probably hit the bar afterwards. Your old gang will be there too." 

Ren glanced at the empty section of his script. "When is the event?"

"Next Saturday."

 

\------  
***

The Castle on a Saturday night looked the same as any other day of the week, with its smoky atmosphere that could burn virgin or rehabbed lungs, and its dim lighting that made anyone look ten times better. The weekend's only difference was the slightly more rambunctious crowd that overpowered the ambient music, and tonight in particular, an especially obnoxious group at the far corner had both the bouncer eyeing with suspicion and the bartender overflowing with orders. 

A pretty waitress walked away from the table after depositing their umpteenth round of drinks, annoyed by their rowdiness but satisfied by the generous tip. She did not know that it was the reunion of seven men that had not seen each other in more than a decade, from a time when they infamously rode the streets of Takodana on loud motorcycles in garbs of black with the insignia _Knights of Ren_. 

"Heard you haven't taken a girl home since you joined the First Order. Do they work you so hard that you can't keep it up on your free time? Or is the meat in the general market just not good enough for your high standards?" 

"Naw, Ren has always had the worst game out of all of us," one of the other knights answered in his stead. "Remember how we used to call him Blue Balls Ben? Always starts, never finishes. He'll need the force of the universe to just get the girl out of the bar."

"That's 'cause you always cockblock him," another knight interjected, then turned to Ren. "We promise to stay out of your strike. We'll leave you to hunt freely tonight, as a token of our reunion."

They all cheered to that, clinking their pints and taking long chugs of their booze, in exception to the surly Kylo Ren that did not even sip his glass of water.

"If you need help, there's also this," a different knight said, slipping a white pill into Ren's hand and then winked. Ren nearly threw the drug back in his face, but then managed to suppress the impulse and simply pocketed it. _Don't make a scene. Don't draw attention. You never know who is watching, and how far words can travel._

Another knight entered the scene and stood by the table. "Yo, I just saw this cute chick by the bathroom. She looked way younger than us, but she was talking on the oldest cellphone on the planet, one of those Mokia types we used to steal and chuck at people's windows." 

Ren stood up abruptly and headed in the direction of the bathrooms. The rowdy group wolf whistled behind him, offering annoying encouragement and warning at potential jailbait. 

The girl in question was easy to spot with the bright orange clunky phone at her ear; he kept a safe distance to observe her from the shadows. A normal passerby would not have thought twice about a girl talking on an old cellphone, but Ren knew better: her shifty gaze, self-conscious of every person that walked passed, along with her unnatural speech pattern told him that she was definitely pretending to talk on the phone, like he had done many times in the past. He inferred that she was either nursing heartbreak or was ditched by her friends and had too much pride to leave. No matter the reason, he was certain that she did not frequent bars very often. She also looked familiar, like he had seen her somewhere before... The Castle's haze however had a tendency of distorting perception, so he buried the thought.

She finally put away her phone and walked to the bar. Sitting furthest away from other strangers, she ordered a dark stout, a pretty manly drink that contrasted with her white or grey garments. He then made his move, taking the vacant seat next to her and leaning over to flag the bartender for a glass of bourbon that he had no intention of drinking. With the physical proximity, he could stare more closely at her attire and he noticed the small details like its frayed edges and loose threads. 

"You're a dumpster diver," he stated.

She turned to him, immediately hostile. "Excuse me? And who are you exactly?"

Kylo Ren smirked. "The man from your daydreams."

The look on her face, as if she wanted to throw up, made Ren realise that his pickup line was not particularly effective. They immediately fell into an awkward silence, until Ren recovered his audacity.

"Tell me your cellphone number."

"It's an 8, from the BB line by the company Mokia, released in the fourth quarter of the year 2000."

"I didn't mean its model number. I'm not looking for one. What I want is the number to contact you."

Her face scrunched up in disgust. She turned away and sipped her beer. 

"You know, I can take whatever I want," he prodded.

"Then why are you even asking?" she snarled back. "If you're just going to continue being a creep when I'm clearly not interested, then why even pretend to have courtesy?"

"True. But I am actually doing you a service, keeping you company and warding off real predators. " He inched closer to her ear, lowering his voice. "You're so lonely and there's no one on that cellphone to actually call. You weren't talking to anyone over there by the bathroom." 

"I was talking to BB-8."

The girl bravely looked at him straight in the eyes, with an intensity that shifted the power and caused Ren to feel self-conscious. His heart began to race, a very odd sensation when he had not touched his whiskey, while his mind completely blanked, another bizarre occurrence when no alcohol was consumed. With the mask of Kylo Ren slipping, the sensitive Ben Solo started to surface.

"I should have been honest with you from the beginning," he said in defeat, hooked by her fierce eye contact. "Who am I exactly? I am simply an actor, of sorts, currently in a slump and looking for a change of pace to help me through the block in my script. Despite what you may believe, this chase and setting gives me no pleasure."

Her gaze softened. "You could have said that before, asshole."

_You could have said something, asshole._

Like a key opening a lock to his memories, Kylo Ren remembered where he had seen this girl before. The strength she possessed may have been refreshing, but it was still an arrow shot to his pride and definitely not to his heart. He smirked with newfound confidence. "Are you wearing white cotton panties or galaxy-patterned boxer shorts meant for a teenage boy?" 

Her jaw dropped, and he continued, "It really is amazing what clothes can do to a woman, or maybe it is your athletic build? You certainly do not look like a 32A."

She stood up, muscles visibly tensed and ready to flee. As she was about to slip away, he gently caught her wrist. "Where are you going?"

"Away from you." 

He held on tighter. "Why?"

She glared at him with all the menace in the universe, then commanded, "Let me go." 

Ren instinctively obeyed and did not even turn his back to see where she was going. Feeling abandoned like the drink that she had left behind on the counter, he reached into his pocket for the Rohypnol pill and recklessly dropped it in the glass; they were both unwanted after all. He strode back to his rowdy group that was too drunk to notice his reappearance, and then downed his bourbon in one burning shot. He would resist the lines to his nose, the drags to his lungs or the shots to his veins, but fuck the liver, he was getting drunk tonight. 

Wallowing in his own defeat, he did not notice the girl return for her beer. 

Only after half an hour, he finally became aware of her presence. His foggy vision watched her body sway and just as she was about to fall from her stool, his reflexes, even in his inebriated state, kicked in and he rushed to catch her before she hit the ground. With the surrounding ruckus of very drunk patrons, their voices loud like explosions in a warzone, the tall dark figure calmly carried the girl bridal-style across and out the bar.


	4. Names and Games

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Ren pushes and pulls, and Rey wants to push him off a cliff.

Rey woke up to the unfamiliar scent of a man's cologne laced with mild spice and wood, along with a faint hint of tobacco and booze, not at all heavy like she had remembered last. She vaguely registered the soft but firm mattress beneath her sprawled figure, an otherwise comfortable experience if it weren't for her limbs feeling heavy as lead, deadened, like she had been strapped down and kept imprisoned. Her half-lidded eyes then noticed a dark figure kneeling at the foot of the bed; she wanted to leap out, kick it, and escape, but the hangover took over her body with vicious nausea and a splitting headache. "Where am I?" she muffled in the pillow. 

"You're in my bed," answered a deep voice. 

Her neck craned in the direction of the indistinct figure. "Your _bed_?" 

"It looks like you want to murder me." 

"How can you even tell in this darkness? You don't even look human to me."

With unexpected grace, the man glided to the window and drew open the curtains in one dramatic pull. A shocking amount of light filled the room, indicating that it was well past the morning; it reflected off cream-coloured walls and freckled pale skin, illuminating the subtle lines of age on his otherwise young-looking narrow face. Seeing the full lips and big ears poking behind messy wavy black locks, her suspicions from the previous night were correct: he was Kylo Ren, that disgusting porn star with the monstrous cock. He however appeared way less intimidating than the man she met in the dim bar, and quite normal compared to the freak on screen. 

"Your eyes are hazel," he stated curiously. "I wasn't sure before." 

Rey found the willpower to lift her body and sit upright. "What happened last night?" she carefully asked. "The last I remember, I was sipping my beer—"

"Wait," he interrupted. "You drank it? The glass that was left unattended?"

"Of course. I was tempted to leave, but it would have been such a waste. Drinks aren't cheap." He seemed to be clinging onto her every word, which fueled her paranoia. "What did you do to it?"

"I didn't think that you would come back. I just wanted to get rid of something that those idiots handed to me. The bartender was supposed to have discarded the liquid..."

Her anger spiked but the hangover kept her restrained. " _Something_?"

"Never mind what I said. It was nothing."

"Kylo Ren," she said to his surprise. "What did you slip into my drink?"

"Rohypnol," he answered, looking to the floor. "Nothing happened to you! Like I explained previously in the bar, I do not take pleasure out of this chase and it was not my intention to endanger you in any way. I brought you to safety and have not touched you in the slightest— look at your state of dress as proof. I have done nothing wrong."

"You fuckin' _roofied_ me!" she shouted, then immediately regretted the outburst since a sharp pain pierced her head. She let out a frustrated grunt, no longer caring about the potentially dangerous man. "If only I wasn't so hung over...I would...I would smash this bedside lamp in your cocky face and take those antler ornaments to shove up your ass, and break your kneecaps with that wooden chair. Urghh, this headache is ripping my head open like someone's prying into my brain. Don't you have any aspirin?" 

Ren seemed completely unfazed by the threats. In fact, he looked at her with more disturbing interest. "Unfortunately, I do not. I've taken up the habit of avoiding all drugs, even the seemingly benign. However, give me a moment and I will rush to the pharmacy to pick some up for you." 

Rey listened to his loud footsteps and a deafening bang of the front door, then waited a moment to make sure that he was clearly gone before trying to get up. It took all the effort and mental fortitude to slide her body off the comfortable bed, and stand on her two wobbly feet that attempted to make a speedy escape but was reduced to a slow hobble to prevent throwing up. She exited the building and managed to pick up the pace in this familiar neighborhood that was essentially her own. Pushing her body's current limits, she would risk vomiting her guts out over crossing Ren on the street. 

She made it safely to the threshold of her apartment complex, but her innards did not quite agree. While she barfed in a bush below vines of morning glory, a few blocks away, a box of aspirin was thrown from the third-story window of the fancy building. 

 

\------  
***

The long lineup outside her staple coffee shop looked the same as usual, in exception to one detail: the tall regular blocking the menu board was Kylo Ren. Rey decided that she could handle one day without coffee, which turned into two, and then the rest of the week.

When Kylo Ren made his entrance at the laundromat on Sunday, Rey had nowhere to hide but behind her thick physics textbook and music cranked at full blast. With her nose buried deep in the book, she could not tell that he was actually staring at her discman, in slight awe at the nu-metal bleeding from shitty earphones. 

Another week passed with these occurrences, without any exchange of words. Rey started to miss her beloved coffee shop and found herself often nodding off in class.

On the following Monday morning, her caffeine deprivation reached danger zone as she almost tripped down the stairs in her state of semi-consciousness. She finally caved. One whiff of the shop's divine aroma convinced her that she had made the right decision; screw Kylo Ren, she could handle him, she was no coward. On her way out, Rey looked over to the self-service stand and accidently made eye contact with the tall man pouring copious amounts of sugar in his beverage. She took a sip of black coffee while maintaining the contact before heading out the door. 

After her late class on Friday, Rey cut through the park and to no surprise, she encountered Kylo Ren at the fork in the path where they usually kept to their lane. This time, however, he broke the streak.

"Something has been on my mind ever since the day you left my apartment. You know my name. How is that?" he asked.

She picked up the pace, but he easily matched it with his long legs. They crossed the park in record timing.

"You must have seen my work. Are you into hardcore?" 

She still kept silent, so he continued talking. "I will assume that your silence means agreement. You must be into hardcore, but are too embarrassed to admit it." 

"My silence is only saying one thing. It's telling you to fuck off."

"There's nothing to be ashamed of. Plenty of people are turned on by a little violence. Which titles did you watch? It must have made an impression if you remember my name."

The red light at the intersection on the main street unfortunately made Rey stop in her tracks, forcing her to engage with Ren. "For your information, I've never been ashamed of anything in my life. Porn is no exception. I checked it out by accident and remembered your stupid face and name because..." Her eyes drifted down to his crotch. "Ugh, just, that thing... I don't get how it's even humanly possible and then the screen froze and killed my laptop— of course I'd remember your name."

"You sound nervous. Admit that you're a little bit attracted to me."

Her nostrils flared as she took a sharp intake of breath. "Listen, Kylo Ren. I'm practically asexual or maybe a lesbian, I don't know, but my ex-boyfriend broke up with me because of it. You may be able to spy on my underwear, or know when I'm not talking to anyone on the phone, but you can't see what's in my heart and mind."

The light turned green and she rushed to the other side. "Never underestimate the power of intuition," he said behind her. "Your ex was probably a closet homosexual or sexually inept."

"Stop making assumptions! There's nothing reliable about intuition. My ex performed just fine. I just wasn't into it." 

"A typical female response," he scoffed. "However, since that is what you believe, I will take your word and assume that your assessment is valid. Let's say he can perform, but it still does not rule out the other option. He is gay."

"He is not! And what does that even matter? Regardless of my ex-boyfriend's performance or sexual orientation, it will never change the fact that I've got little interest in sex, and even less in you."

"Still, I can make you come."

Rey almost turned around to punch him in the face, but instead bit her tongue and kept a firm pace. The more she engaged, the more fuel she would be adding to the fire. Passing the kid's playground, she channelled her anger through the thought of strangling his neck with the rope from the tetherball pole.

He simply did not quit. "I have a lot of experience— I can even get my most hated colleague aroused and satisfied, and he is a man while neither of us are gay. No matter your orientation, give me a chance. I can show you the ways."

"Seriously, fuck off!" Rey lost her temper. "Even if I was completely straight, I would never in a million years hook up with you."

Making a turn on her street, the presence of his shadow suddenly disappeared. Curious, she looked back to see him frozen in place, expression unreadable and eyes looking beyond her. When she reached the threshold of her building, the tall immobile figure in the distance had vanished and she assumed that he finally got the message. 

The safe haven of her apartment allowed her to quickly forget the disturbing encounter. She stripped down to change into galaxy-patterned boxer shorts and a loose black tee with silkscreened graphics peeling from age. Breathing in that lovely antique smell, a scent that reminded her of Solo, she collapsed onto the bed and reached for the stack of bound papers on her bedside table. 

Rey read _Celestial Conflicts_ until dark circles formed under her eyes and the light of dawn filtered in through threadbare curtains.

 

\------  
***

"There is no meat. " 

The conveyor belt at their cash register lane remained at a standstill due to a customer with problematic items that could not scan. Rey's groceries, comprised of vegetables on sale with wilted leaves, bread, and a few cheap canned goods, were therefore left on display for Ren's prying eyes to observe. "Are you vegetarian?"

"No."

"Then why—"

"It's cost-effective."

The pimply teenage clerk flagged down their manager when the queue behind Ren seemed to grow in length and impatience. He inched closer to Rey, reducing the already short distance between them and making their height difference all the more prominent; she wasn't short, just average, but she felt like he could block the sun and cast her in his shadow.

"You work so hard... Surely, you can afford—"

"No, I can't. I'm lucky to have even scraped the funds to go to college."

"You're not on scholarship?" 

The flow of scanned items shortly resumed when the problem was easily remedied by the manager. Space on the conveyor belt opened up for Ren to place down the contents of his basket, of energy drinks and snacks, everything taxable and considered luxury to Rey. The clerk apologized to Rey for the delay and began scanning her items, of which she immediately took back to put in her backpack. 

"How about your parents? Do you ever ask for help?"

"I can't." Rey completed the money transaction, receiving her change and stuffing the coins in her pocket. She swung her bag over her shoulder. "I'm an orphan."

If Ren wanted to gloat or apologize for prying too deep, she did not give him the chance nor the satisfaction of seeing her solemn face. He was only left with the sight of her three buns of dark brown hair bobbing as she rushed out the grocery store.

 

\------  
***

"If I ask you a question, will you answer truthfully?" Kylo Ren took a seat across from the girl in a vicious duel with her homework, pen marks slashing against paper. He set down his coffee cup in the little space available on the table covered with notes and textbooks, then looked curiously at the blue marks flowing from a silver pen. "That's mine," he blurted out.

"What?" 

"That pen. It's mine."

"You're really grasping at straws to start any conversation," she brushed him off, and went back to her homework, avoiding his gaze. "Is that all you wanted to say?"

"No, actually, I had a simple question. You just have to answer yes or no. But that pen, I'm curious now. Where did you acquire it?"

"Kylo Ren, I have no time for this. I'll only answer one of your questions, so choose between the two." 

"Is your name Rey?"

The pen dropped and Rey looked at him, thoroughly freaked out. "How the fuck do you know all this? How long have you been stalking me?"

"I assume that is a yes?"

"It-it is... Now that I've answered your question, go away. I need to study." She recommenced the homework duel but her hand worked slower, clearly distracted.

"Rey," he tested but she did not respond. "You were reading a physics textbook the other day. The plethora of bookmarks hinted that you need help. I can be your teacher." He peered at her notes and cocked an eyebrow. "Chemistry? Why are you studying that?"

"Not my choice. It's a required class."

"Chemistry is nothing but stamp collecting."

She slammed down her pen and looked him straight in the eye. "Good for you, genius. It's great that you consider it such a leisure activity requiring no effort. The rest of us peasants happen to find it quite difficult. Now if you excuse me, I'm leaving to go study elsewhere since you clearly won't shut up and leave me alone."

"That's not what I meant. Ernest Rutherford said that all science is either physics or—"

The chair scraped against the floor as she got up abruptly and gathered all of her things in one swoop. Not bothering to pack them in her bag, she left before he could explain himself further. The table appeared wider with only the coffee cup left behind. 

 

\------  
***

Over the course of the next few weeks, Kylo Ren tried to engage Rey in trivial conversation and was often left with the image of her back walking away. Like clockwork, on the Friday evening, she ran into him at the fork of the path in the park, but unlike their other encounters, he surprisingly did not slow down to match her pace. It was a little weird, but he was generally a weird person and Rey decided that it was nevertheless time to confront him once and for all.

"Kylo Ren, we need to talk," she said behind him, and he stopped but did not immediately face her. "This is seriously getting ridiculous and I have enough shit to deal with. I have no time for your obsessive stalking. Stop trying. I'm never going to sleep with you."

He slowly turned to look at her. The curious warm glint normally found in his eyes was instead replaced by matte dark beads. "Don't flatter yourself," he said coldly. "Sure you're pretty, but you're not particularly endowed. 32A? I was trying to do you a favour."

Rey could no longer contain her anger. Walking all the way up to his towering height that did not flinch at the sudden invasion of personal space, she kicked him in the shin, with all her force, hard enough for him to stumble and for her to bruise from the recoil. "I don't recall ever asking for anything aside from leaving me alone! You're the one that keeps on approaching me."

"I talked to you on a whim, as a change of pace." He rubbed his leg, then stood back up to full height. "It's not that you mean anything to me. Did you think that I actually liked you?"

She kicked him again in the same spot and he swore loudly, clutching onto the area. "Something is seriously wrong with your head!" she shouted. "One minute you seem somewhat tolerable in your weird way, then another, you become the biggest asshole in the universe. I don't know what kind of upbringing you've had or maybe lack thereof, if your manners are any indication. I don't like you either and I can't see how anyone ever could. I wouldn't be surprised if even your mother disowned you."

His cold face filled with pained emotion, dark eyes suddenly glistening which made Rey's heart skip a beat. She knew that his expression had nothing to do with the physical pain she had inflicted. 

"You're right. I am an unruly asshole incapable of love," he said seriously. "I'm doing this all for my job."

He walked away with a slight limp, and Rey stood there watching his slouched back shrink in the distance. He had conceded, but she felt like the loser.


	5. Intrigue and Fatigue

The barista at the quaint coffee shop hid their confusion with a poised smile when the girl with hair in three buns walked into the shop mid-day, ordered a piece of strawberry shortcake, and actually returned a smile for the first time before leaving with a light bounce in her step. Perhaps the sudden change in behaviour wasn't so surprising since the rush of students cramming for midterms seemed to be over, and the girl must have done well after the countless hours she had spent in the shop. 

Rey did more than well; she nearly aced all her exams. As she walked down the street humming a 90s pop-rock song, her mind drifted to the phantom of her apartment that had whispered the correct answers through scrawled notes in the margins of textbooks and worked problem sets on loose leaf sheets inserted randomly in pages. If only the phantom knew chemistry, she could have scored perfect.

At the base of her red brick apartment, a small figure was seated between the bushes and Rey recognised the grey vest over a teal blue sweater. As she approached closer, she noticed that Maz was picking up cans and trash hidden in the shrubbery.

"The nerve of the young," said Maz, head deep in a bush. "Back in my day, sure we partied hard, but we were respectful of other people's lawn. Can you believe it? I even found a pile of vomit a few weeks ago."

Rey set down the bag containing her dessert along with her knapsack, then bent down in front of a bush. "What an awful person." She rustled the branches and quickly found a piece of trash. 

The old lady poked her head out, beady eyes blinking behind bottle-cap glasses. "Oh, Rey. No worries! You really don't need to help. I'm almost done."

"I'm used to this type of work. I should have helped you sooner."

Maz tried once again to deter Rey from helping, but then got distracted and went on a rant about the city's terrible recycling system, or lack thereof, and how the young generation should kick up a fuss and care more. "Ya know, none of the other tenants have ever helped out with the grounds. I wonder if it's the spirit of your room... The kid before you used to keep things pretty tidy."

"You've met them before?!" Rey nearly shouted, then instantly clapped down her mouth. The heat of embarrassment tinted her cheeks.

Maz chuckled. "Intrigued by the ghost are we? Yeah, I was never his landlady, but I knew him. He was this genius kid, sent to college at a young age, was expected to do great things. The burden must have been too much though. He just vanished one day."

"Do you know how old he was when he left?"

"Hmm... maybe sixteen? Ben was relatively young, but he was pretty resourceful, so I never worried about his survival. Rumour has it, he wasn't alone when he left... he'd been influenced by someone all along. And then, we heard news that he—" A sudden beeping noise caused Maz to look at its source, at the watch between bangles on her wrist. Her already magnified eyes widened further. "I've been picking up trash for this long? I'm gonna be late for the auction. Gotta run!" 

She dashed off down the street, leaving the bag of trash on the lawn which Rey promptly picked up and disposed in the garbage can beside the building. On her way up five flights of stairs, down the hallway to her apartment, and across her kitchen where she set down her dessert on the table, Rey had one thought repeating in her head. His name was Ben. 

As routine dictated, Rey stripped down to change into more comfortable clothes, _his_ clothes, and headed to the bathroom to wash her hands. Did _he_ also stare mindlessly at his reflection after a long day's worth of studies? She went into the storage closet to retrieve a new stack of papers. 

Settling herself at the kitchen table, Rey ate her celebratory cake while reading the next chapter of _Celestial Conflicts_ , paying more attention to the cursive script of handwritten words. Somewhere, maybe in this very seat, from a time long ago, a boy was holding these very papers and wielding that blue fountain pen to pour out his creativity. The previous tenant was no longer a phantom, but a real boy that once breathed this same dusty air, wore dark grungy clothes and listened to that loud hardcore music. He went to college just like her, and probably walked the same path through the park every morning and night, but he must have made a wrong turn one day, somehow got lost and never returned. Where was he now?

 

\------  
***

A thick bound script was hurled to the wall, followed by a coffee mug crashing in an explosion of ceramic shards and lukewarm liquid that trailed down the wall, dripping onto the mess of papers gone astray from its binding. A heaving distressed tall man stared blankly at the destruction that he just incurred, while the small audience sitting around the meeting table held their breath, the only muscle movement coming from pupils darting sideways as they looked to one another. The director at the head of the table remained unfazed and simply waved for them to leave, of which they made no hesitation, rushing out the door as if a time bomb would explode any second.

"I can't do this anymore." 

"Kylo Ren, " said the director, walking towards him with arms outstretched like welcoming an old friend. "Frustration is a perfectly normal part of the process. Yes, I'm being hard on you. But it's because I know you have the potential to do better."

"I've been trying to fill in those fuckin' blanks for _weeks_. That was the best I could come up with. It's never going to get better."

"Ad libs should be spontaneous, unrestrained. I want those scenes to reflect that, to be natural, original. There's no need to fill in the gaps right now. Try not to overthink it— just trust your gut." He turned to the mess and bent down to pick up the beat-up coffee-dripping script. "I'll get a new one printed for you... though you probably don't need it since you've memorized the whole thing."

"Can you be more specific? I doubt my _gut_ is sufficient for the task."

The director casually walked to the trash can and discarded the sopping script. "Hmm... have you ever been stupidly in love?"

"No."

"Then, how about happily in love?"

Ren shot a murderous glare which the director somehow interpreted as longing. "Unrequited love?" 

"My job does not allow that luxury." _That useless emotion_ , Ren wanted to add. "What does that even matter?"

"You can draw inspiration from real life, use the experience, make your act more convincing. Maybe even discover more about yourself in the process. Is there at least someone you're curious about right now?"

"There is no such person," Ren answered a little too quickly.

"Oh, really? If you say so... But in case a lovely lady happens to stumble in your life, be sure to take action. In any case, this was just the preliminary reading. We're not shooting those scenes till months from now. You'll have time to figure it out." He smiled and Ren did not return the gesture. "I believe in you," he finally said, then exited the room. 

Ren slumped into a chair and stared at the mess, at the fractured mug amidst the pool of coffee, its broken pieces scattered like his current state of mind. He sat there thinking of the director's last words, and only got up to leave when the bustle from the hallway dwindled to complete silence as the staff from the studio left for the day. In the lobby, however, two staff members remained.

It is said that walls have ears, and Ren was apparently a wall since the two did not register his presence; his particularly large ears did not even need to strain to listen to their gossip. The echo of their words accompanied him all the way back to his apartment. 

_Why did they cast someone from First Order Agency?_

_I heard their CEO hates our director._

_The First Order...I bet they're trying to sabotage our production..._

 

\------  
***

The delivery mopeds from Dana's Pizzeria lived on borrowed time, but the sudden halt onto the curb in front of the tall apartment complex had nothing to do with its dying engine, and everything to do with the plummet of her heart when she realised where she had to make the delivery. Rey slowly got off the vehicle and removed her helmet, dusting it off, wiping the visor, hanging it on the handle bars. She reached into the cargo to retrieve her last delivery of the night, then dragged her feet to the front door and pressed the designated apartment number in the keypad. When the intercom connected, the sound of white noise crackled from the other side of the line, but shortly went dead as the electronic lock unlatched without having to confirm her identity. She entered the white-marble lobby where she once feared tainting with vomit. 

The numbers above the elevator doors lit red, like an alarm of danger counting up to her doom; it pinged at the third floor, and Rey walked out on white marble tiles that led up all the way to her dreaded destination. Taking a deep breath, she knocked on the door.

Despite anticipating the face of Kylo Ren, she was not prepared to see such a disheveled version of the man, partially unshaven with a heavy five o'clock shadow, dark circles, and hair curiously braided along the top of his head. No wonder it was a pizza day. "It's you," he muttered in surprise. "You don't usually work Tuesdays." 

"Your order is fifteen eighty which includes the delivery."

His eyes looked at her with warmth, unlike the soulless ones that she last remembered; he didn't speak any further, simply accepted the delivery and handed her the money. With the transaction complete, they were supposed to part ways, but he left the door open, waiting for her to make the first move. 

Rey fidgeted a bit on spot, then finally steeled her resolve. "Look, about that other time," she reluctantly said, and she could have sworn his big ears perked up like an animal. "I may have overreacted when I saw you. It was midterms, I was really stressed and just sort-of lashed out. I still don't like you, and you totally deserved the kick, but I admit that what I said was pushing the line. I'm sorry."

The pizza box dropped to the floor as he reached for her wrist, placing the pad of his thumb on her pulse. His other hand cupped the back of her head to pull her towards his chest, her ear landing right at his heart. The smell of cologne and spice and wood unearthed memories of their first encounter, of that comfortable bed, that radiant light, those pretty freckles. With her cheek pressed against the soft knit fabric of his shirt, she listened to his heart beating at a tempo so fast that it could have been mistaken for a purr. His chest was so warm, so firm, and she couldn't remember the last time a man had held her in this way, or ever for that matter, with such desperation... 

Rey pulled away, appalled at her train of thought.

"I take back my apology. You're nothing but a creep!"

She bolted down the hall for the emergency staircase instead of waiting for the elevator. Convincing herself that her racing heart was due to running down three flights in twenty seconds, she could not quite explain the feeling of his touch lingering like a red hot burn, with the traces of his alluring scent clinging onto her clothes, following her like a shadow. 

Every piece of clothing on Rey's body was therefore viciously ripped off the moment she entered her apartment. She rummaged into the wardrobe drawers, digging deep to the back for something untouched and kept within its time capsule. An old black shirt was pulled from the depths— how typical of a teenager to stuff a dress shirt in a drawer instead of neatly hanging it up— and she hugged it close, burying her nose in the folds while taking a deep breath to replace the memory of Ren's cologne. 

She covered her naked body in the oversized shirt and fell asleep within its protection, dreaming of a teenager named Ben.

 

\-------  
***

"Your phone is ringing." 

Kylo Ren stood by the picnic table where Rey was stationed with her head down, apparently refusing to acknowledge both his presence and the phone. He therefore picked up the vibrating BB-8 hidden beneath a notebook, and looked at the screen. "The caller is not in your log, but the number is 218-7—"

"Leave it," she cut him off. "It's nobody."

He obeyed and left the phone alone, then took a seat across from her. A sea of papers stretched from his end of the table to hers; he added to the pile, reaching over to place down a thick stack of notes neatly organised with colour-coded tabs, right on top of the textbook Rey had been using.

"I wasn't sure of the topics that you needed to know, so I included everything," he explained.

She gave him the stink eye, but nevertheless leafed through the package, her expression slowly softening as she flipped through to the last page. The notes were really well put together, with problem sets for practice and answer keys with explanations.

"Ok, I get it. You're smart. You don't need to shove it more in my face." She tossed it back to him, but its heavy weight only landed a foot in front of her, still within arm's reach in her territory. "I can't accept it. You just want to get in my pants."

"That's not true," he said, sounding earnest. "You may think of me as hypersexual because of my profession, but that's entirely false. I have enough sex on screen that I'm rather sick of it."

"Bullshit. What about all those inappropriate remarks? No man does that without ulterior motives."

"I was merely stating the facts. I never said that I wanted to sleep with you. I just said that I could show you the ways, that I could make you come."

A blush crept up Rey's neck, either from anger or embarrassment at the memory. "Isn't that the same thing?!"

"No. I was offering a service. I did not intend on deriving pleasure from it."

"Hang on." Rey put down her pencil to rub her temples, massaging the onset of a headache. "So what you're saying is that you didn't _want_ to sleep with me, but you wanted to show me how to have sex? How is that any different? "

He slowly registered her words, then corrected, "It's not that I wanted to show you... It's that I _could_ show you, if you wanted to."

"The outcome is the same!"

"But the intention is not."

They paused, both looking at one another and trying to process each other's valid responses. Rey was first to fold, shaking her head like the physical manifestation of pushing away those confusing thoughts. She picked up his pile of notes. "Why did you compile this?"

"I'm not sure... You made me realise that I forgot most of my knowledge of chemistry. I suppose I got carried away and ended up with all that information. I thought it could help you, since you've been struggling with the subject."

"Well, thanks but no thanks. I don't need any of it." She tossed it with more force. It managed to reach his side of the table, but fanned out of its neat pile and blended with her papers underneath. She promptly went back to her studies, treating Ren like another tall tree in the forest-like park. 

"Are you still angry about the incident at the bar? It was all a misunderstanding, and I regret my reckless actions."

"You mean the roofie?" Rey was still focused on her homework, managing to write and talk at the same time. "Aside from the terrible hangover, nothing happened in the end. There's no point of dwelling on the past anyway."

"Was it because of the other night? I promise not to touch you without permission. You caught me off-guard. It won't happen again."

"Yeah, I was pretty pissed about that, but then I remembered that you're generally a weird person. I guess you were touched that I apologized? I put it behind me." 

"Then why do you hate me so much?" 

Rey finally looked up. "Do I need a reason to hate you? It's just a feeling. You make me feel uncomfortable."

"You do the same to me!" He stood up to his full height, effectively acting like a tree casting its shadow onto the table. "I hate the way you make me feel, especially when you look at me with those intense hazel eyes. However, I'm trying to overcome the feeling, like building my immunity, by exposing myself to you."

"What? Is that what you're doing? Try avoiding me altogether. It'll work better and save us both the grief."

"Avoidance?" he sneered and walked over to her, looking down. "You honestly think that is the solution? That attitude will cost you dear in the long run. No wonder you're always drowning yourself in work. Is it really to make ends meet or is it to numb the loneliness you feel?"

She stood up with her chin high, the intensity of her gaze making up for her smaller stature. "What the fuck do you know?!" 

"I know from experience! "

"Well good for you." She returned a mocking smile, which was perhaps the first time Ren witnessed her pearly white teeth. "Fortunately, I'm nothing like you."

He laughed mirthlessly. "Correct. You are nothing like me. Because at least I've been trying to change my circumstance and escape what I was born into. An orphan, you say? Is the fear of abandonment so strong that you cut people out before you even get to know them? At this rate, you'll never get over your ex and you'll be forever alone."

Rey cussed loudly and whipped her spiral-bound notebook hard against his face, not realising that the tip of the metal coil was sharp and left a long scratch, deep enough to draw blood, along the right side of his face, from the bridge of his nose all the way down his cheek. He stared at her in awe, with the red liquid slowly seeping down like tears that he would never shed. 

Seeing the red mark, Rey felt a deep chasm split between them. She gathered all her papers including his stack of notes, and ran away.

Takodana may be temperate, but the air in the park felt colder at that moment. Fall was upon them.


	6. Seul

Despite its lack of public funding, the lavish late 19th century estate along the waterfront managed to stay afloat by opening its impressive grounds and interior to weddings, photographers, film crews, and any other interested party that could pay the price of its rental. With their budget particularly tight that year, the curator was in no position to deny business, even if it was on short notice and totally impeded with the vacation days they had set aside months prior, of which they refused to compromise and therefore led them to beg their only available staff member, the part-time groundskeeper, to oversee the photo shoot in their stead. 

It would be an easy task, the curator had informed, to the girl that usually wielded hedge cutters in the grounds and hardly ever stepped foot inside the quiet mansion. She would simply have to usher the crew to their desired location, the grande master bedroom, and then stand nearby in case they required assistance. If Rey had known just who would be walking through those heavy mahogany doors, in aristocratic costume that matched his haughty demeanor, she might have thought twice about taking the shift. 

The crew wasted no time in the meager two hours that was allocated. Black softbox lights stood in stark contrast with the vintage decor of the bedroom, and flashed as the photographer snapped away at the actors posing under the guidance of their director. It was apparently yielding great profile shots, or so Rey could infer by the little amount of words that she could hear from her station just outside the room. She was not required to watch the scene, but the flashing light had been distracting and she decided to take a quick peek.

No scar marred his face at first glance, but as she stared intently, she noticed that his skin appeared flawless, free of blemishes and moles. The mask of makeup even hid those cute freckles normally sprinkled like salt and pepper that gave him distinct character; Kylo Ren almost did not look like the man she had come to know. This version dominated the space with command in his posture and glare, so unlike the fumbling idiot that tried to spark ridiculous conversation, with those annoying puppy dog eyes that nearly made her fold at times.

He stood with his impossibly long legs next to the beautiful woman of near equal height, like a picture spread from one of those haute couture magazines Rey had only ever read over the shoulders of girly girls in high school. Ren moved closer to the woman, lifting her curtain of hair with the back of his hand to reveal her slender neck, and leaned in to almost press his full lips upon her milky smooth skin. Rey looked away. 

Men like him were meant to be on screen and not engaged in real life.

When the shoot finally wrapped up, Rey escorted the group back downstairs and stood by the front door while the crew, director and actress walked out with thank yous and goodbyes. To no surprise, Kylo Ren lingered in the foyer, seemingly distracted by a painting on the wall or maybe the Victorian sconce, and Rey rolled her eyes at the obvious tactic. She crossed her arms, waiting for the awkward comments that were bound to escape his lips, now that they were alone.

But they never came. Kylo Ren passed the threshold without a twitch in his stony expression, arms to his sides with clenched fist, and into the front yard without a backwards glance. She was only left with the waft of his infuriating cologne. 

 

\------  
***

Takodana's change of seasons involved a subtle dip in temperature made evident by the thickening of her clothes— oversize sweaters, arm warmers, woolen scarves, and the same brown boots finally appropriate for the weather. His wardrobe stayed the same, unlike his attitude that now matched the cooling air.

The red slash healed to an imperceptible pale mark linking the dark freckle above his left eyebrow to the mole on the right side of his nose, like the implied lines that connected stars into a constellation. Most could not tell that it was there, but it was the first thing Rey always noticed when she saw his face in the coffee shop, at the laundromat, the grocery store, the park, everywhere that they ran into one another, and each time where he no longer made contact.

It did not matter, she convinced herself, as she sat in the waiting area at the laundromat, while Kylo Ren sat across from her with his body turned and eyes focused on one of the dryers. A part of her wanted to speak up and ask if his silent treatment was just some game to lure her back in because as much as she hated to admit it, she had been thinking of him. Was he trying to gain the upper hand, or was he genuinely pissed off at the scar— what a vain asshole, to be so caught up by his looks, she eventually concluded.

Rey's laundry finished before his, and she got up to collect her clothes. Walking out the laundromat, she fumed about the growing existence of Kylo Ren, and paid no attention to the glass dryer doors that reflected the entire room, her empty seat in plain view.

 

\------  
***

Trees once green turned a beautiful array of yellow and red against the clear blue skies, while the vines of morning glory continued to bloom sometimes up until noon. Her surroundings were changing and it was about time that she did as well. Rey quit her delivery job at Dana's Pizzeria. 

The extra time gave her more hours to study, and sometimes, even a break. Without anyone to talk to, Rey often wandered the streets or loitered in the playground, with thoughts definitely not of Kylo Ren, but of Ben the teenager that was the only person bringing her comfort these days. _Celestial Conflicts_ had hit a particularly exciting point in the story and she looked forward to reading the next installment, to escape in the world that he created. 

On her way back after a particularly gruelling day of classes, she stopped by the playground and thought about how she never spent time at these places when she was a kid. Taking a seat on one of the swings, she pushed herself forwards and backwards, then jumped off and landed onto the hard sand. Monkey bars were next. She easily reached up to grab the cold metal, hoisted herself over and hung the back of her knees onto the bar. Blood rushed to her brain as she stared at the world upside down. 

She would admit, at least to herself, that she was lonely. Although Ben and his stories filled her void, it was just not the same as having a physical friend, a living breathing entity that could emote, inspire change in both herself and in them. Indeed, discovering Ben's music was like sharing mixtapes with a friend, something that she had never taken part of in high school, and of course, the notes left in the textbooks helped her out like having a buddy in class, but Rey had nothing to offer in return to Ben because he was not physically present. No one was. 

_His_ scar flashed in her mind, and she was reminded that the only semblance of a companion for the past months was the weirdo stalker that had no concept of personal space. But even his tenacity had been broken, cut off by the swipe of her very physical hand. 

Ben really was all that she had left.

**

Rey climbed onto the stool to reach for the last big box in the walk-in closet. It felt bittersweet that _Celestial Conflicts_ was drawing to a close, but all good stories needed to end at some point. She peeled back the yellowed masking tape, and opened the cardboard flaps to reveal... model kits of spaceships and planes, and no sign of any paper. She must have seen wrong, there must have been another box somewhere within the deep closet; she climbed up the stool, but was only met with empty shelves and slight panic. 

Her desperate hands reached for other parts of her abode. She combed every nook and crannies until the apartment was a dump, a messy wasteland, thrown in disarray with papers everywhere, but no additional chapters to be found. Rey fell to her knees, staring blankly at the floor. With wiry hair that came loose from her buns during the frenzy, and fat tears rolling down her cheeks, she finally looked like the heartbroken girl that was supposed to appear when Finn broke up with her.

It was stupid to cry over a fictitious person, to some boy that could only exist in her mind, in her dreams. Who was Ben? He was just a phantom, a shadow in the room that emerged and vanished, that was not meant to be. However, he did exist at one time, and maybe, he could be found if she searched beyond the walls of the room. Maz seemed to have known him.

_Don't let yourself get stuck in the past... Make connections with the present._

Rey retracted the thought of asking Maz who would probably lecture her. Before chasing a ghost, she would first take care of that other shadow, the one that seemed to be giving her the cold shoulder these days.

 

\------  
***

The next time Rey encountered Kylo Ren in the coffee shop, sitting alone at the table by the window, she boldly marched over and parked her study materials right across from him. She did not look up to witness his reaction, and simply dove right into working out some problem sets from her textbook. After filling a whole page with blue pen marks, she finally spoke.

"Sorry about the scratch. I didn't think it'd scar like that. You're an actor, after all."

"It's nothing. I've had worse."

It was oddly soothing hearing his deep voice after all those days of silence. She nodded and looked up, only to see that he was still staring out the window. "Are you mad at me?"

"No. I deserved the hit."

"You actually didn't, for once. I should have smacked you on other occasions, but this time, well, I admit that you were kind of right... I quit working at Dana's by the way."

He also nodded, and then turned to meet her hazel eyes. "It's the second time that you apologize to me. Why do you do that?"

"Isn't that obvious? It's the right thing to do. If you've done wrong, you apologize and try to make things better."

"I see." He swirled his cup of coffee, his expression slowly softening. His range of emotions was truly amazing, and he currently wore those puppy dog eyes that incited either another punch in the face or a pet on the head. "I reversed the order. I tried to make things better by leaving you alone, but I never apologized. This may be too late but— I'm sorry. For overstepping my boundaries."

Rey's jaw nearly dropped and her hand instinctively went back to work, unable to process yet another version of Kylo Ren. Her cursive usually-legible handwriting flowed out like chicken scratch. "This is fine, you know, engaging once in a while and coming to an occasional truce. Since we clearly have similar routines and neither of us are willing to change, let's just co-exist in this space. I'll keep to my thing, you do yours. We'll talk when necessary."

He took a sip of coffee to hide his huge smile, then looked out the window once more. "Sounds good." 

They sat there in silence, with only the sound of his occasional sip and her scratch of the fountain pen, the turn of a page, the gulp of his throat, until the sun's last rays receded into the darkness of the evening. With the little amount of light outside, the window became a mirror that reflected their tired faces. Rey turned to look at his reflection, which was already looking at hers. 

"If you had treasure, where would you hide it?" she asked.

He cocked an eyebrow. "Is there a particular context to the question? Are we talking about metaphorical or physical treasure?"

"Just...like, for example, if you were a teenager living in one of the apartments in this neighborhood, and I don't know, had a piece of writing like a diary or something, and wanted to hide it from your parents. Where would you put it?"

"That is quite specific. Why are you asking me this?"

"Just answer the question."

He glanced at the pen that she was holding, and kept his voice neutral. "I'm not sure if an ordinary teenager would think of this, but I've noticed that, since the houses in this area are quite old, the floorboards often come loose near the vents and windows because of the moisture.

"However, if someone is hiding the item, it might not always be treasure. Maybe it was something that they were trying to bury, but did not have the courage to throw away."

 

**

That night, Rey moved the furniture by the window to check the floor underneath. The boards appeared sealed and unmoving, but a simple wedge of her screwdriver made the whole wooden piece lift out. She nearly revelled until she realised that instead of chapter drafts, she found letters.

Leafing through the thin pages, she scanned the vocabulary and quickly noticed that it had nothing to do with _Celestial Conflicts_ , but of struggles from the real world, of a lonely teenager with too much anger and too little self-esteem. The writer addressed the letter to their grandfather, and the strong foul language made Rey wonder what kind of elderly man would tolerate such profanity from their grandchild, but maybe such a close relationship existed normally— she could never know, considering her unknown parentage.

She dropped the last page, at the final word of the letter.

It was signed, Ben _Solo_.


	7. One Step Forward, Two Behind

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This slowburn is killing me.

At every slide of lecture notes on the projection screen, the complex equation progressively broke down to comprehensible bits that Rey still could not swallow, as she was too full with thoughts of a different puzzle that had been endlessly holding her attention these days, one in which the pieces connected but the picture remained unclear. 

_Solo._

Han and Leia had a son. 

It now made sense why they had a vacant room to offer, and why it was left untouched like a time capsule buried fifteen years ago. It logically made sense, but it felt so bizarre that Ben was never mentioned during the multiple times she had dined at the Solos, even slept over in their guest room on a few occasions. There were never any passing comments, no objects left behind, nor any photos on the wall of this elusive family member; his only traces were the clothes she comfortably wore and the stories she grew to love. 

If Ben had moved to another country, the distance might have caused a rift within the family, forcing him to eventually lose contact with his parents. And if he married a crazy possessive woman that refused to let him visit home, perhaps the Solos simply accepted the fact and gave up on reaching out. It however sounded highly uncharacteristic of Leia. Maybe he turned to religion and became ascetic, shutting himself off from the world. Or maybe he was no longer Ben Solo, and had a sex change like that famous athlete Katelyn Genner. He could have also changed his name to— oh, she had no idea, Kylie Renner? 

_Who knows!_ Han and Leia should know. She could simply ask them, but the question might become awkward if something somber had occurred, like if Ben passed away. How could she possibly bring up the topic to them?

The professor's loud cough suddenly interrupted their droning speech and snapped Rey from her reveries. Looking down on her blank page of notes, she realised that her pen had not moved all class and that it was pointless to stay any longer, even with a mere ten minutes left. For the first time in the semester, she slipped away before the lecture ended.

 

**

"That's a wrap. Good job everyone!"

The room broke out in applause at the successful first day of filming. Between the clapping and handshakes, Kylo Ren stood stiffly with arms to his side, a little confused at the amicable environment and at the fact that he still had his clothes on. The director walked over with a stupid happy grin, with his hand reaching for the broad shoulder that surprisingly did not shrug off the friendly pat. "Nice work, Ren. Anything good happening in your life?" 

_Anything good?_

Perhaps his mood had improved a bit these days. He couldn't pinpoint an exact moment or a particular reason for the slight change, which made him think of the little things in life, like how the girl had been letting him walk next to her in the park, usually listening to her music while he eavesdropped to the nostalgic tunes bleeding from those shitty earphones. 

Then there was that time at the laundromat. When only one dryer had become available and her wash finished five minutes before his, she got up to switch out her load but did not start up the machine right away. His wash completed and just as he was about to collect it with a dejected sigh, she opened the door for him and proceeded to transfer its contents into the dryer. He paid the fee, but she saved him the wait. In his closet at home, he still had one of her socks that evaded their triage by getting stuck onto his static-prone pair of sweats.

Sometimes, she even talked to him. At the grocery store, she asked if he knew why bananas turned black when left in the fridge. She bought a lot of bananas that time, too much for her backpack to handle. When he grabbed the extra plastic bag of items from her, she hardly even put up a fuss— well, she tried to take it back but he held it so high that she gave up and didn't even do the obvious, which would have been to punch him in the ribs. He was able to hold the bag up until the end of the street, before she snatched it back and childishly stuck her tongue out at him. He laughed and he could have sworn that he saw a blush tinting her cheeks as she turned away.

Life was... warm with that Rey beaming at him.

"Nothing much," Ren simply answered.

The director winked knowingly. "Whatever it is, keep it up!"

He left the filming site by carpool and he asked to be let off close to the historic house. He knew that she didn't work today, but the timing should have coincided perfectly with the end of her class and their routine of walking home together. However, after crossing the park, peering into the coffee shop, and passing the kid's playground, there was no sign of the girl. He finally found himself at the end of their usual route, standing at the intersection that met with the street that housed the red-brick apartment. 

She could have gone home early to study alone. For a girl built for the outdoors, she certainly spent too much time inside. Maybe he would ask her if she wanted to skip rocks on the lake, to get some fresh air. He turned on the dreaded street. 

 

**

With images of Ben Solo distracting her mind and progressively getting wilder at every iteration, Rey did not immediately register the dark-skinned man standing in front of her building, holding a piece of paper and squinting at the foliage that obstructed the address number. If it weren't for the empty garbage cans on the sidewalk that forced her to watch her step as she almost tripped into one, Rey would have instead ran into the man who was equally not paying attention to the approaching girl. She stopped in her tracks and stared in disbelief. 

"You came back." She blinked to make sure that Finn was indeed real. There were too many ghosts in her life these days. "How did you find me?"

"Han told me. But not easily. He looked ready to punch me in the face when I asked him, but he gave me the address in the end."

Rey took a few steps closer, then passed him to stand on the stone path entryway that lead up to her building. It gave her a little boost in height, only a few inches, but enough for her to be completely level with Finn. She kept firm eye contact, as if he would disappear if she stopped looking. "What are you doing here?" 

"I wanted to see you. You know, to talk and patch things up. Four months without my best friend is just too long. I know I said I'd wait, and you can totally leave me on this curb if you're not ready to forgive but... I've really missed you, Rey."

It started with a glossy coating over her hazel eyes, then a sniffle, until finally she was not able to hold back the tears that slowly trailed down her cheeks. She never broke eye contact despite her blurry vision; she stood there, silently crying. Finn also stared back with glistening eyes, and began opening his arms to give a hug that was once so second nature, but he hesitated and stopped midway. He dropped one arm, keeping the other up to instead aim for a comforting hand on her shoulder. 

His hand however never reached that quivering shoulder because a dark figure emerged from the void with a flying fist. It smashed onto the side of Finn's face, with the full force of the man's six foot three frame. Finn slammed into nearby empty garbage cans, tripped over and fell onto the hard asphalt. Kylo Ren then took another step forward, apparently not yet satisfied by the damage, but Rey took action by tackling him to the ground.

Straddled over his torso, she grabbed him by the lapels of his jacket. "What the hell is _wrong_ with you?!" 

"He..he made you cry!"

"You _idiot_! He's my—" At that moment, she heard another crash of garbage cans as Finn tried to get up, but stumbled once more. She dropped Ren's collar and rushed to her friend's aid.

Ren watched her take Finn's arm to place over her shoulder, while she wrapped her own around the man's side for support. She led him into the apartment building, with such concern on her face, without a backwards glance. Ren remained on the gritty asphalt, staring at the front door long closed.

 

**

Rey reached into the freezer to retrieve an ice cube tray that she cracked into a resealable bag. She handed the makeshift icepack to Finn, and then searched the bathroom cupboard to luckily find some disinfectant, ointment and bandages for the abraded skin on his hand, along with the cut on his lip from the impact of the punch. 

When she returned to the kitchen with the impromptu first aid kit, Finn was seated by the table, holding the icepack on his cheek. "I'm seeing someone," he confessed.

Rey held back the urge to dump the rubbing alcohol all over his face and hand. "Thank you for telling me?"

"He's a... well, a _he_."

"Wait, what?"

"Rey, it's been really plaguing me— the thing about sex... Don't you see, all this time, I was just so confused and unsure and scared. Then I met him and it all clicked." 

She responded by putting down the bottle of disinfectant and gently swabbed his wound. He winced a little, but didn't voice any pain. He instead continued his confession that seemed to be the real source of injury. "I clung onto you because you're my best friend, and you're so amazing and beautiful. I mean, you probably don't know this, but those guys that teased you in elementary, the ones you told me about and hated in high school, they all had crushes on you. I overheard them in the gym lockers but never said anything because, I guess I didn't like the idea of some other guy taking you away. And it made me believe that I wanted to be more than friends. 

"But the truth is, I was just lonely and scared. I love you, I really do. I don't think I can ever stop, even if you hate me for what I did. But I finally realised that love is not this simple thing limited to romance. I don't want to blame our upbringing as orphans for not knowing the difference, it's really all my fault— I messed up bad. I've been so selfish, such a coward... probably still am, but I want to change. I want to make things better."

Her arms instinctively wrapped around him in a loose hug. "Finn, don't take all the blame... It's not your fault. I think we were both going through the same doubts, and it was just a bad combo with bad timing. I'm really happy to see you and I'm so glad that you've found an answer. I'm still confused about that stuff... Maybe I'm also gay, or asexual or whatever. It's all such a headache."

"You know, it's not always black and white. There's such a thing as being grey, Rey."

She let go of the hug to turn and look at him. "What do you mean?"

"It's when you're somewhere in between. Not quite asexual since you can feel some attraction, but definitely not fully sexual because it's so seldom. I read up on all this orientation stuff before I met Poe— honestly, I might not be completely gay either, maybe I just met the person that just made it all make sense. I'm still figuring things out." 

Rey nodded, then proceeded to apply ointment on his hand and bandaged it up. He stood up from his seat when she was finished. "Am I forgiven?" Finn asked.

"Yes, but there wasn't much to forgive. I'm also sorry. I shouldn't have ignored your calls. Let's grow old together, but not in the stupid way society wants us to." 

It was his turn to embrace her, this time in a proper tight hug. They stood there connected in silence for some time, wrapped in that familiar warmth like being home after a long journey. 

Finn was first to break the moment. "So... about that guy that delivered this punch..."

"Ugh, don't mind him. Well, he's hard to ignore and I'll tell him off later on."

"Who is he exactly?"

"Where do I even start. It's a really long story and I'll tell you all about it, but bottom line, he's like a shadow that keeps on following me around. We have this very weird connection, this strange bond that I feel forced into because we keep on running into each other. Somehow our routines perfectly match."

"Bond? Do you possibly like him?"

"Oh gosh, _no_. He's just— he's all sorts of wrong. It's actually my first time seeing him so violent. Usually he's super awkward and reserved, though he tries to engage in conversation and can be a real rude piece of work. I knew deep down that he's bad news... Anyway, enough about me. I want to hear about this Poe."

Finn smiled at the mere mention of the name. "Wanna meet him? What's your Christmas like?"

"I promised to visit Han and Leia. Maybe we can... make it all there together?"

"That sounds brilliant. I'd love to and will make sure Poe comes along."

"And I'll be sure to tell Han that we made up, so that he doesn't punch you in the face when you arrive on his doorstep."

 

**

Cloud nine burst into rain, into a very angry storm. His long legs paced around the spacious but generously-furnished apartment, in wide strides that fought the urge to kick a table or two. He needed to shake off the agitation, to calm the nerves that had been dormant and so mellow that he actually thought something had changed within. When the recitation of kinematic equations did not distract his mind, he ripped off his clothes and rushed into the shower. 

Under the jet of cold water, his body still felt hot. He tried to jerk off. Stroke after stroke, his dick remained limp, which was preposterous. He, who could will an erection at the sight of Hux, currently did not have control over his body. His scream echoed in the small chamber. 

All those years of meditation, overcoming substance abuse, paving his own path and not the one that he was born into... and yet, he still could not escape the emotional mess that was Ben Solo, this weak little thing succumbing to petty jealousy, so alone and so sensitive to what a mere girl thought of him.

_But she's not a mere girl_ , he said to himself. She was Rey, with the hazel eyes that could silence him by the intensity of her glare that was only supposed to exist in dreams. She was a girl that crashed into his life with all the disdain of the world, wanting to murder him for no reason, and making him insanely curious. She was the object of his fixation, something that would help him through his difficult project, but she was not an object— she was a force, and one that should not be reckoned with.

Ben exited the shower, naked and drenched. He walked into the living room and stared at the blackout curtains, a sliver of light slipping along the frame of the glass balcony doors.

She was too good, too radiant, for him. That other man was probably the one who had been calling her, 218-7— he couldn't remember the rest of the number. The image of her expression as she led the man into her apartment, so full of concern and care... What were they doing in there? In that dingy apartment with the bed too small. Ben punched the wall. His fist smashed into the weak plaster, bits lodged in his knuckles, and flecks of blood stained the cream walls. Of course Rey would chose 2187. How could he ever believe that she would look his way instead.

Another piece of furniture was left outside Ben's apartment, too beat-up for even the most desperate scavengers to take.


	8. Revelation

The four hour commute by public transit to the outer rim of the city became an hour drive in the hands of the daring Poe Dameron. Speeding when necessary and overtaking at every possible opportunity (in totally non-asshole manoeuvres that made Rey envious), the ride passed as fast and seamless as her last few weeks of the semester. 

Scenery along the freeway blurred into splashes of colour, like the foggy memory of December's cold rainy days. Rey had routinely trekked through the downpour, but she never encountered that speed bump Kylo Ren— the bastard probably didn't want his fancy black suede jackets and nubuck shoes getting wet. Or maybe he didn't want to see her, she had no idea. After completing her last exam, Christmas Eve finally arrived and the streak of grey skies ended. A white blanket of frost covered the morning glory and tucked them into slumber for the oncoming winter. 

Rey pulled out her phone as Poe slowed down at the familiar exit. "I'll let Leia know that we'll be there in ten."

"Make that twenty, " Finn interjected. "We should stop by the liquor store. I'm sure Han will appreciate the extra wine."

"Roger that," Poe answered with a smirk, then looked at Rey in the rear-view mirror. "Whoa, is that a BB-8? I had a phone like that years ago. I'd probably still have mine if it weren't for that bike accident..."

"What happened?" she asked.

"Hmm... good question. I don't really remember... I messed up my head pretty bad that time. Not sure what happened to the bike and I got a new phone shortly afterwards."

"Must have been an awful accident."

"Yeah, it was one of my worst. Usually I have a clear memory of the events, but for that one, all I have is this vague image of some tall creature before the crash. I was never able to figure it out."

They continued their conversation into the liquor store, exchanging stories of accidents like showing off their battle scars, but quickly moved to the general topic of vehicles which made Rey bubble in excitement and lose track of time. Finn wandered off on his own, perusing the extensive selection of wine, then debated over hard liquor; if he were picking out of consideration of Han, which Rey suspected, he would want to get it right. 

With Finn's indecision, Poe's nonchalance, and Rey's distraction, they arrived at the party fashionably late. 

 

**

"I was just about to call!" Leia exclaimed as she greeted Rey with a hug. "That was a Han Solo twenty minutes. Don't let him rub off onto you, Rey."

"Who do we have here?" said a man with round glasses, popping unexpectedly behind Leia. His bright gold shirt with the curious red sleeve stood out like an eyesore. "My name is Charles Connor Cameron Patterson-Oswald. And you all are?"

"C3PO"— Leia placed a hand on his shoulder— "this is Rey, her friend Finn, and... Poe Dameron? Poe, I'm surprised to see you. I didn't know you were all acquainted."

"It's a small world, Mrs. Organa-Solo. I'm flattered you remember my name." 

"Of course, how could I forget the name of such a great pilot? I heard you only fly airliners nowadays. The government would love to have you back. Anyway, let's not just stand here in the entrance. Come on in!"

The trio followed the elegantly dressed Leia and the chatty C3PO into the den, only to be stunned by the amount of people. Rey always knew that their house was spacious and fancy— Leia definitely called the shots on the interior decor— but the crowd of formally dressed guests further raised its high-class vibe. They were easily the youngest people there. "I thought it was just a small get-together," Finn whispered to Rey.

"Me too," she silently mouthed back.

Leia quickly got swept away by some other guests, while C3PO went to sit down next to the quiet man dressed in white and blue, leaving the trio at the table of catered hors-d'oeuvres and dangerous amounts of wine. Finn did not hesitate to dig in, while Rey followed suit. She would need a few drinks before feeling comfortable in her second-hand sweater. 

 

**

No matter how hard Rey squinted her eyes for a hint, she was still not able to pick up any details of Ben Solo's existence in this household. Granted, tonight might have not been the best night for detective work, considering her state of intoxication and the fact that she had just barfed in their pristine downstairs toilet. It would have been an awkward place to find family photos. 

Rey finished rinsing her mouth, washed her hands, and exited the bathroom. Instead of following Finn's loud voice that was apparently very friendly with some of the other guests, she went into the quiet kitchen to get a glass of water. By a stroke of pure luck, Han was sitting alone at the table with a full glass of whiskey and the half-empty bottle nearby. It was now or never.

She took a seat across from him, and started conversation about C3PO and his quiet companion. It seemed like an easy topic and she wanted to know more about them. Han was rather receptive.

"Ya know. I don't usually feel bad for anyone, but that poor Arthur Jr. He comes for Christmas every year just in case Luke shows up. Luke's never gonna show up."

"Luke?"

"Skywalker. Leia's twin brother and legendary living two-times Wobel prize winner that completely vanished over a decade ago."

"He's your brother-in-law?!"

Han shrugged and took another swig of his drink. "Not a very reliable one these days. I guess we're partially to blame after dumping Ben on him."

"Ben?" Rey feigned ignorance, getting up casually to pour herself a glass of water from the tap.

"My son."

"Oh. Is he here tonight?"

Whiskey sprayed out of Han's mouth. "Are you nuts?" he shouted. "If the kid were here tonight, it'd have been a disaster. The party would've been cancelled. Leia would be a mess, heck, even I would probably lose it. It'd be one hell of a Christmas, getting the family finally reunited." 

Rey fought back the urge to bombard him with questions. She sat back down and took a few napkins to clean the table. "What exactly happened? Did he also vanish... with Luke?"

"I doubt it. They disappeared around the same time, but Leia knows they didn't leave together. We don't know for sure... Leia told me that Ben had been influenced by someone, Snoke... he got taken away by Snoke, or something. Ben kind of went crazy before he left us. He burned down our old house. _The ass set fire to the house!_ " Han chugged the rest of his drink and Rey poured him another glass. "No one was home, and it luckily didn't spread to the neighbors, but for fuck's sake. The entire house. And my precious Falcon, gone. 

"Me and Leia, we're to blame since we weren't around and the kid, no matter how gifted he was, he was still a stupid teen. Y'know, I didn't always just work at an antique shop. I used to be a TV personality, one of those travelling host on a show that was primetime. It was really popular with families. People liked that I was a father. But then a few years ago, I got dragged into some stupid scandal and lost all credibility because of Ben. The damn kid's been doing _porn_!" 

Rey suddenly felt very sober and aware. Her body went very still, except for her heart that was about to leap out of her chest.

"Geez, he was supposed to be some nerdy physicist like his uncle Luke...not sure what went wrong there. But no matter how fucked up he's become, we still miss him. I wish he'd just come home and talk to us. 

"I gotta hand it to him though. He brought me back to Leia. Because of my job on the road, I was never really home, but then the scandal about my son being in porn broke out, and it forced me to retire. I've been stationed here ever since, and it's not that bad. Life's pretty good. Who'd have thought. Ben, because of _porn_ , brought his parents back together. It's as laughable as the stupid fake name he uses."

"What does he call himself?" Rey asked, but already knew the answer. 

"Damn, what was it now." Han held his temple and closed his eyes. "Oh yeah. _Kylo Ren_."

 

**

On the drive home, Finn bantered excessively with Poe to brighten the dark cloud emanating from Rey. He was thankful that his boyfriend was sober and a fast driver because he was starting to run out of things to say. They made it back to the heart of Takodana in record timing, much to his relief.

"Alright, we're here." Finn turned around to see Rey with her head resting against the window. "I think you had too much to drink. Do you need help getting in?"

"No, I'm fine." She flashed him a smile that didn't reach her eyes. If Finn thought it was fake, he did not call her out. "I actually stopped drinking way before you, so I doubt you'd even be able to climb the four flights."

"You're probably right. Call me tomorrow morning after you've had some rest."

"Will do," she answered, then climbed out the car without much grace. "Thanks for the ride, Poe." She bid them goodnight with a wave, and continued waving until Poe's car turned the corner and was no longer in sight. Taking a seat on the entrance steps, the cold concrete bit into her ass and sent jolts of adrenaline that pinched her brain. She glanced at the red brick walls covered with the dead vines of morning glory. That cursed flower. She should have known it was an ominous sign. 

Instead of returning to the safety of her apartment to sleep off the night, Rey could not control her legs that sprung up and sprinted to a different destination. They took her down her street, and turned onto the one with the expensive-looking houses. It seemed to have happened in a flash. One minute ago, she was freezing in front of her apartment building. The next, she found herself in front of _his_ apartment door. 

Banging like a crazy ex in the dead of night, the door finally swung open to a very shocked Kylo Ren. His bloodshot eyes took in the dishevelled sight of Rey.

"You're Ben Solo."

He opened his mouth, then hesitated and settled on a humourless chuckle. "Took you long enough, considering that hint I dropped."

"What?" 

"I told you where the letter was."

She gasped loudly, her face flushing in embarrassment. She stalked towards him like a predator about to commit murder, and he instinctively backed up, letting the door slam as he let go. His apartment, already crowded by furniture, shrunk even further when she closed the distance between them. Under any other circumstance, he would have been turned on, but the look of pure rage in her eyes kept him on high alert. 

Rey pounded her fists against his firm chest, like knocking on the steel door to his heart, desperate for an answer from the person that hid behind the wall of Kylo Ren. "Give him back to me," she cried. "Ben Solo! He could have been dead, married elsewhere, or had a sex change. I would have welcomed any of those ideas. Out of all the possibilities and people in the world, why does he have to be _you_?!"

He grabbed her wrists to stop the pummelling that was bound to leave a bruise. "Tell me. What do you know of Ben Solo? How much of his did you read?!"

"Everything. I read it all. Every note he left in his textbooks, every chapter of Celestial Conflicts, each word in the letters to his grandfather."

He released her, then took a few deep measured breaths. "And why do you want him back? What makes Ben Solo so great that you would come barging at this hour, in such a state, screaming like someone _died_."

"He was my hope! He was the only comfort and support these past months without Finn! I want him back because I lo... I just want to know what happened, why he never finished writing Celestial Conflicts."

"Oh, that's quite simple. Ben Solo always starts, but never finishes. He is nothing but a coward, so weak and sensitive, and too preoccupied with the thoughts and expectations of others."

"He's not a coward."

"He wrote that novel to avoid his problems, to escape the pain and pressure of real life. When it was not enough, he ran away. "

"It wasn't Ben's fault. He was influenced by Snoke. He got taken away by him."

" _Snoke?_ " Ren laughed. "Snoke. Now who in their right mind told you that?"

"Your father."

It was his turn to become beet red, flaring up in confusion and anger all at once, with that amazing range of emotion he possessed. He stepped forward, using his height to intimidate her. " _How do you know my father?!_ "

"I work for Han at the shop on my summers. I just got back from Christmas dinner at their place."

Ren's expression imploded. His face twitched every which way, like he was trying to say a million things but could not utter a single response. "Han told me Ben got taken away by Snoke," she continued. "It would make sense since a sixteen-year-old couldn't possibly survive on his own."

"There is no such person," he finally managed to say. "Snoke was code for snorting coke. He couldn't handle the pressure and took the easy way out. Your precious Ben Solo was a fuckin' addict!"

"You're lying."

"How I wish I was. You may think of Kylo Ren as a monster, but he is at least living with integrity. Ben Solo never made his own choices. They were always pre-determined." 

"Wake up, you're not making your own choices either. It's pretty clear that you hate Takodana, so why are you still here? You're a pawn, a mere tool to do the biddings of some CEO who reaps the profits of your dirty work." 

"Those are responsibilities. That's life. We make choices and must abide by the consequences. Anything is better than the useless life of Ben Solo."

"Don't you dare badmouth him more than you already have."

"Why do you even care so much? I have every right to say what I want. He and I are the same person."

He had said it. The one fact that that she knew deep down but refused to believe. It remained the hard truth: Ben Solo was Kylo Ren, plain and simple. Rey lost all composure. She punched him hard in the stomach and kicked him until he fell to the floor. Straddling over his chest, she grabbed him by the collar like she had done weeks prior. But instead of pummelling his face, she cried on him. Fat tears dropped like rain, a torrent against cold concrete.

Through the blurry lens of tears, she looked at him, really looked and saw Leia's eyes framed by Han's structure. It was him, the child of Solo and legacy of Skywalker— how could she have missed it before? Knocking on that steel door was futile because all she had to do was look up to his eyes, to the windows of the soul, and see that he was in front of her all along. 

Without a second thought, she recklessly leaned down and captured his full lips with her own, pressing into him aggressively at first, then slowed down to a tender kiss. She began to hesitate, fearing that the ghost would vanish any second if she gave too much of her light. Moving up the narrow jawline, her lips hovered over his big ear and kissed the top. Her teeth grazed his lobe as she whispered in defeat, "I'm in love with Ben Solo."

Rey got up to leave, while Ben remained on the floor in a daze. She looked back, with tears streaming down her face. "I hate you, Kylo Ren."

The door clicked shut before he could reply. "I know."


	9. Disposition

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a little shorter than others, mostly because it's setting up the stage for the next that will be a complete toothache.

From the vantage point of the narrow airplane porthole, Stellacida resembled a circuit board speckled with white lead corrosion. Snow had already accumulated into small banks along the twelve-lane boulevards and interconnecting roads, lined with high-rise buildings also capped in frost. No one would put up with the city's less than desirable weather, if it weren't for its reputation as one of the country's most profitable hubs, namely its entertainment industry that sold dreams of fame, money, and success. However, under the bold headlines and loud promises, the hopefuls with stars in their eyes failed to read the fine print: only a fraction would rise to the top while the rest would fall into despair. Stellacida was a star killer.

Ben Solo didn't consider Stellacida his home. It was instead his base, a place where he could regain his bearings and recover for the next fight. And after the events of last night, he instinctively fled to its safety. 

The metal door opened automatically after a swipe of a card, so unlike the wood and jangling keys he had to deal with in Takodana. His spacious condo greeted him with darkness and silence that accompanied him for days and nights, as Ben dove into a routine of reading, meditating, and working out. If he could exhaust his mind and body, maybe the tingle on his left ear would cease. Maybe he would finally stop hearing the echo of her words. 

On New Year's Eve, close to midnight, he ventured outside for a change of pace. Forgetting that Stellacida was not built for pedestrians, he walked a short distance on the sidewalk before it abruptly ended, forcing him to flag down a cab. He asked to be dropped off at the first place that popped in his mind, a pretentious club that he used to frequent, but immediately regretted his decision upon arrival. Party-goers, decked out at their finest, crowded the place with loud laughter, obnoxious dancing, excessive drinking, and general happiness that he could barely stomach on a good day.

He marched to the bar, sat down at the only available stool, and ordered a drink. When he heard the grating voice next to him also taking an order, he didn't even bat an eyelash at his shitty luck. 

"Kylo Ren."

" _Armitage_ Hux." 

Those ice blue eyes narrowed in contempt, and Ren could practically read his mind. _Fuck you_. "What brings you here alone?" Hux instead asked.

"Same reason as you."

"Touché."

An awkward silence descended upon the two. They were never encouraged to be amicable, only to be civil with one another, and even that was a stretch. Any words that Ren would say might be used against him, but he didn't particularly care in the moment. "Men and women are mere objects. Sex is just an act, a bodily function like eating and shitting, without any particular sentiment attached to it. These tenets, we have lived with them ever since joining the First Order, and they have guided us to a successful career in an industry known to be as harsh as Stellacida's winters. There's no reason to question them."

Hux took a sip from his glass, tilting his head back so that his nose stood up higher than usual, as if anything below his gaze was insignificant vermin. "You're a little strange tonight, Ren. What's your point?"

"My point is, do you— have you ever felt restricted by the rules?"

"Restricted?" His sardonic smile reminded Ren why he hated the ginger bastard. It was such a mistake coming here. "Never. That only happens to those who are _weak_. Has that project of yours casted doubt?"

Ren's eye twitched. Bourbon downed in one shot, he slammed the glass onto the bar counter and got up from his seat. "Maybe it has," he answered, then turned to leave.

From outside the club, the loud countdown and gleeful cheers could be heard as the clock struck midnight. 

 

**

A last-minute flight on New Year to Takodana turned out to be more taxing than the journey to Stellacida. After three connections and many hours wandering airport terminals, Ben Solo finally arrived back at his apartment with a strange sense of relief.

"What the hell is all this?" he muttered to himself, looking down at the large stacks of boxes that blocked his doorway. His first instinct would have been to kick the tower and let the janitor deal with the mess, but he had no energy to be angry and it wasn't an ordinary pile of junk. Seeing a familiar bright sticky note among the brown cardboard, his heart began to race as he bent down to read it. 

He didn't crumble the note like he once did at the laundromat. In fact, he didn't even touch it. Pushing one stack aside to gain access to the door, he wrestled with his key and let himself in. Only after a thirty-minute shower and much deliberation, Ben went back outside to confront that baggage of his past.

The boxes were moved into his living room, while the note was placed onto the glass of the small antique photo frame that he retrieved from his bedside drawer. It stood in great contrast with the photograph underneath, a neon square over a black and white portrait of an intimidating man.

He could almost hear her voice through the untidy handwriting.

_Finish what you started, asshole._

She had labelled the boxes with big numbers circled in black permanent marker, but he still remembered that the FemEx one contained the first chapters while IPS housed the last. He couldn't believe that this novel would come back to him.

Opening the first box, he stared at its contents. A silver fountain pen laid on top of the mound of papers. 

 

\------  
***

"Okay, so engineers are two buildings over, social sciences are here, I already know where student services are, and the general lounge is across from it... I think that covers everything. I really appreciate the tour, Rey. I'd be totally lost without you."

"I'm just glad you're back in school," Rey said, smiling radiantly at Finn. "What time do you finish today?"

"At four, maybe earlier since it's the first class."

"Come meet me in front of the engineering building. I finish around the same time."

"Sounds great." Finn was about to enter his classroom, but suddenly remembered one last thing. "Oh! We forgot about the library. Which way is it?"

"Good question... It's somewhere over in the east wing. I'm not sure."

"Where did you study all last semester?"

"Here and there," she answered vaguely, trying not to recall all the spots that would remind her of _him_. "I went to the library once and really hated it. Being surrounded by strangers in total silence, it was just really alienating." 

"You could have gone with a friend or something... Wait, have you also been avoiding people? Rey! It's not like in High School!"

"I just haven't had the chance, Finn. I really wanted to do well my first semester and I was working a lot. I went out that one time, but then, well, you know what happened. I'll try to talk to more people this semester."

"I'll be sure to help."

Finn's promise to help Rey socialize did in fact materialize. That evening, he introduced her to a group of girls, and even tagged along when they went shopping. Store after store, he supported Rey as she tried to break her frugal habits, and treat herself to an item or two, until she accumulated enough bags for a week's worth of outfits. The lingerie store was however his limit, but he at least managed to push her in before stationing himself outside. 

Rey didn't buy anything crazy that would make her uncomfortable. Just a pair of pajamas.

 

**

The cold draft from the window forced her to change the placement of her bed. It created a domino effect, leading her to move the bookshelves, dresser, side-tables and even some of its contents. Books no longer in use were stowed in the nearly-empty storage closet, which cleared a few shelves for the set of cacti Maz had given her as a Christmas gift. Just like the re-arrangement of her living space, her winter semester schedule also shared the same fate. 

Groceries were now done with Finn and Poe at the bigger supermarket across town where the produce was cheaper, which allowed her to buy meat. Each week, Poe also managed to slip in her bag some additional items for recipes that he either created or referenced from his bank of favourites. She envied Finn for eating so well, but her knock-off versions weren't too bad either. 

Laundry days were also spent with Finn and Poe who insisted that she shouldn't waste her money at the laundromat when they had a washer and dryer in their apartment. While she waited, they watched cheesy action flicks or played video games. She beat Finn at all the racing ones, but admitted defeat at the shooters. 

She spent less time at the coffee shop. In addition to great recipes, Poe also supplied her with delicious coffee beans from down south where his family was from. The taste was excellent and gave her little excuse to frequent the shop, especially since she no longer had morning classes and often studied in the library. 

Like gears with cogs slightly out of place, her once perfectly-aligned schedule with Kylo Ren was now completely out of sync. Relying on chance or fate would never give what she wanted. She stopped expecting. 

On her walk home one night, her imposed indifference was however lifted. Looking into the distance, she saw a tall figure dressed in black standing under the swing set in the kid's playground. Rey's adrenaline kicked in. Both her heart and legs raced, leading her all the way up to destination in a sprint that left her panting. She stepped foot on the sand, and the man turned around. 

Normal-sized lips, nose, and ears. Her excitement instantly deflated. She pivoted on stop, then ran away before the stranger could say a word. It wasn't him. Of course it wasn't.

Once home, Rey pulled out a band t-shirt from the bottom drawer kept shut for the past month. Its scent had not changed. The new pajamas that she had been wearing were left folded under her pillow, and slipped off the bed when she moved around in the night. It remained forgotten on the floor. 

 

\------  
***

The Castle on a Wednesday night looked the same as it did months prior, with the smoke and dim lighting that she remembered all too well. Its only difference was the relatively calm crowd that enabled her to hear Poe's witty comments and jokes, even under Finn's boisterous laugh. Throughout the night, she watched their display of affection increase like their contributions to the bar's sales, which probably surpassed those of other patrons.

When the pair were making out without a care of their surroundings, Rey concluded that it was probably a good time to call it a night. 

"Okay lovebirds, let's head out." She waited for them to close up the moment, but apparently they were just getting started. Finn's hand crept into Poe's shirt exposing a sliver of tan skin and abs. Rey knew that she either had to pull them apart, or leave them there. She decided on the latter. "Finn, don't forget about your evening class tomorrow, or today....what time is it anyway? Oh fuck, it's late. See ya guys."

She stumbled out the bar and decided that it was a fairly nice night for a walk. The brisk fresh air would help her sober up, and maybe it would freeze the sadness that currently flowed in her heart. Unfortunately, Takodana was not cold enough. 

Her tipsy feet did not take her home. Instead, she found herself once again in front of the high-end apartment building that she had no reason to visit. 

Within the darkness, a light shone from the window on the third floor. She took one step forward.


	10. Blue Balls Ben

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not quite the toothache that I originally planned, but hope you guys enjoy it nonetheless!

They called it liquid courage for a reason. While most people used its power for the ability to speak their minds, Rey was given the strength (or the bright idea) to scale an exterior wall to the third floor. 

Her first step felt like the greatest decision ever. On her second to fifth, her confidence soared and she felt like a superhero. By the tenth, doubt started to creep in, and by the thirteenth, full-on regret settled, but there was just no turning back after glancing down at the story-high distance from the ground. She managed to reach the first balcony, hoisting herself over the railing and landing on the platform to give her muscles a break. It wasn't _that_ bad of an idea. 

The journey from the second floor to the third however turned into the real challenge because the brick seemed to have eroded into a smoother surface thus offering less grip— did Kylo Ren routinely pour acid from his window to promote chemical weathering or something? She wouldn't put it past him.

She could see the light at the end of the tunnel, that glass balcony door curiously not blocked by curtains. With an estimated two more steps, Rey's impatience kicked in and she indiscriminately reached for the next groove that proved to be particularly smoothened by Ren's supposed acid-attacks. Her hand slipped which threw off her balance; she was going to fall. Through sheer animal instinct, she propelled herself upwards like a crazed monkey screaming a shrill war cry, and miraculously caught the bottom of his balcony railing. Hanging with one hand, the cold metal stung her skin and she started to lose feeling due to overexertion. 

Her fingers slackened. It wasn't a death-assured height, and if she shifted the direction of her fall, she could aim for the second floor balcony. Worst case, she would break a bone or two if she fell all the way to the ground. Rey closed her eyes as she accepted her fate.

But she was suddenly _lifted_. Something firm grabbed onto her wrist, and the next thing she felt was a split-second sensation of flying, then a crash onto something that enlaced her upper body with warmth. Once the confusion and rush of adrenaline calmed down, she recognised that scent and that purr of a heartbeat: Kylo Ren was tightly hugging her. Looking up, their eyes met and he quickly detached himself. He stood up, then turned around to casually lean against the railing, apparently interested in something down below.

"Did you just... _climb the wall?!_ "

"Yes?" 

"Have you been drinking?"

"Only a little."

"You must have high tolerance if you think that it's only a little." Ben approached the open balcony door while Rey just continued to stare at him. "Do you want to return back down that way? Come in."

The light in his living room might have appeared like a beacon in the darkness of the night, but her eyes adjusted quickly since the decorative lamp and wall sconces were actually quite dim. Stacks of familiar boxes lined one of the cream walls, and to her surprise, its contents were strewn across the coffee table with the silver pen sitting among the heap. Papers also littered the kitchen counter and side table next to the dark blue sofa; she always assumed that he would be a meticulous tidy-freak, and never considered the work-in-progress madness of a genius. She assumed a lot about Ben Solo, and even more about Kylo Ren.

"Why did you climb the wall?" His deep voice interrupted her thoughts. "You could have buzzed downstairs."

"The light was on. I just wanted to look in and see if you were still living here. I didn't want to buzz in case a new tenant had moved in."

His Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed hard. "So, you wanted to see me?"

"No." 

It didn't smell antique like the bottom drawer of Ben Solo's dresser, but the wood and spice and cologne gave her a different comforting feeling. Brushing her hand against the soft velvet couch, she took a seat and kicked off her boots. Her aching muscles instantly relaxed, while the alcohol started to make her drowsy. 

"Our routines have changed, but I haven't," she slurred, bringing up her legs to comfortably lie down across the plush surface. "I don't even know anymore."

"What don't you know?"

She didn't respond. Eyes shut and cuddling one of the numerous throw pillows, she looked asleep which made Ben audacious.

"I really want to kiss you right now."

Rey cracked open one eye. "You're really weird. I'm half passed out and reek of booze, and yet you want to kiss me now of all times?" She pushed herself up into a sitting position and made room on the couch, ushering him to also take a seat. "Don't get excited. I'm only letting you hold my hand." 

Beggars couldn't be choosers, so he followed her command. As soon as he sat down, she plopped her head on his lap and took his hand. Ben's back went ramrod straight. 

"Does it make sense that I'm jealous of Finn? I'm happy for him, but also a little sad. When I first met him, he was so scared of everything and kind of a coward. But it's different now." 

_Finn?_ His grasp on her small hand tightened. "Please stop talking about 2187," he muttered to apparently deaf ears.

"He found this great guy. He seems so confident, he's got it all figured out. He's like this new and improved Finn, whereas I'm... I have no idea. I think I'm making some progress, but the world still feels grey." 

Her soothing voice calmed his nerves, even if she spoke fondly of another man that inherently made his blood boil with jealousy. Admiring the sound of her words, his back slouched a little, sinking into the sofa that he never appreciated until this moment. Drowsiness transferred from hand to hand, travelling all the way up to his eyes that started to droop.

"Maybe I should just sleep with you. At least then, one mystery will be solved."

His body jolted wide awake. He stood up fully tensed, letting her head fall onto the plush couch. "Let's bring you home."

Ben encouraged her arms over his broad frame and placed her on his back. He needed to get her out of his den before she shook his resolve any further. She readily held onto him, chin settling over his shoulder and legs hooking around his torso. Awkwardly shuffling into shoes, he left without a coat in favour of saving time and risking any more temptation by this devil of a girl. The heat from her body, along with the fire that she ignited in his veins, was enough to keep him warm in the cool night as he walked to her apartment.

"You have nice shoulders. I used to watch your back at the coffee shop when I didn't know your name. There were sixty-three ribs on your black sweater. Why don't you wear it anymore? It looked good on you."

"It shrunk in the dryer. I had to discard it."

"Do you always wear dress shirts at home? If you do, that's kind of pretentious. Hmm...your hair smells kind of floral. Do you use girl's shampoo?" 

Her questions were left unanswered. Standing before the red-brick apartment, it dawned onto him that he would have to go _inside_. With Rey comfortably pieced onto his back like she owned him, there was no way he could simply leave her at the doorstep.

"Keys?"

"Back pocket," she muffled against him, face buried into his collar.

"You're not getting them for me?" 

When she didn't respond, he did not hold back. Reaching behind, he palmed her ass and lingered there because he was a straight male that just received tacit permission to search. He waited for an elbow jab or a headbutt, but it never came. She simply giggled which almost made his brain shut down. Sliding two fingers into the tight jean pocket, following that curve of firm muscle, he retrieved the keys and tried not to think about the signals she was sending him, particularly the way she continued to giggle so close to his ear. 

His arousal was however cut short upon entry of the building. Aside from some minor paint restoration, the place really had not changed and he was overcome by memories. It hit in increments, at every creak of the wooden steps all the way up to the fifth floor. He wouldn't have been surprised to see the ghost of his younger self walking next to him, a gangly teenage boy with a heavy backpack, the weight of physics on his shoulders instead of the now beautiful girl that was a gift rather than a burden. Reaching the threshold of her (his) apartment, he expected the worst as he opened the door. 

Emotions did not flood in. It was oddly anti-climatic. Something had changed with the room, something about the aura was not quite the same, and he was certain that it had nothing to do with the re-arrangement of the furniture. Feeling exhausted, he deposited her on the bed, then made his way to the exit. There was only so much he could take in one night.

"Ben, don't leave." 

Apparently he was a masochist, immediately returning to her side. She grabbed his hand like a lost child seeking comfort. This vulnerable Rey really freaked him out. He almost preferred the one that wanted to rip out his throat; at least he knew what to do. She tugged him closer, and he said, "Fuck it."

Ben got in bed with her and she welcomed him readily, latching onto him with a tight hug around his chest. 

"When Finn gets married, is he still going to be there for me?"

"When you get married, will you be there for him?"

"I'm never getting married."

"You also said that you would never hook up with me, and here we find ourselves lying in a bed together..."

"That was to Kylo Ren. You're Ben Solo."

"We're the same person, Rey."

"Shut up, don't remind me. Just for this night, let me live my fantasy of Ben Solo. We're cuddling after not seeing each other for a long time. You see, he's this hotshot physicist, and often goes around the world to give lectures and discuss his work. I don't always get to see him. It's tough having a genius boyfriend."

Ben played along. "It's great having an independent girlfriend such as yourself. He doesn't have to worry." 

"Got that right. He's super loyal too. Even though he's flying all over the place, he'll never leave me. Oh, hang on, this bra is really itchy." Rey dislodged herself and got up from the bed to pick out some boxer shorts, his old ones with the little spaceships, and a band t-shirt that he remembered all too well. She unhooked her bra first and removed her shirt together in one swoop, exposing the lush curve of her back. Bending over in an absolutely tantalizing manner, she stripped off her jeans and Ben had to look away. It was utterly ridiculous. Him, the thirty-one year old porn star who has seen the full extent of the human body, could not handle the nudity of a girl getting dressed in his teenage clothes. 

"That's better," she said casually, slipping back into bed and clutching onto him again. "Why are you wearing such stuffy clothes?" 

"We were shooting late. I was just about to change when I heard that weird noise outside. I'm glad I rushed out, otherwise you would have— W-what are you doing?" 

Rey's nimble fingers worked at the buttons of his shirt, starting from top to bottom. "Getting rid of this," she stated as if he was an idiot, then went for his belt buckle. She worked so fast, and before his stalled thoughts could catch up to the moment, he was left in his black classy boxer-briefs, and an undershirt tank. "Isn't this a lot more comfortable?" she said with an infuriatingly cute smile.

Her small body cuddled into him. Pert nipples pressing through the thin worn fabric, they rubbed against his skin, begging to be squeezed, pinched between teeth. It took all his restraint not to flip her over and ravage the shit out of this fuckin' tease. 

Oh, the absurdity. When he was a teenager in this very same bed, he imagined what it would be like to bring a girl home. But he was thirteen, a pimply genius kid in college, where the fully-grown women would never look his way because of his age, awkwardness, and pedigree. Now, this beautiful girl held onto him like he actually meant something, like she actually wanted him, unlike the hooker who he lost his virginity to, or the countless casual encounters leading up to his career in pornography. Eighteen years was never too late.

His nose tested the waters by gently brushing up against hers. When she didn't pull away, he closed the distance between their lips. His kiss was hesitant, withdrawn, like the teenager that she grew to love. He pressed a little deeper, slipping in his tongue ever so tentatively, as if reminding her that he was a man and not a boy with innocent intentions. Pulling back, he watched her lips curve into a smile. Her eyes however remained closed. 

He kissed her again, a little more urgently, then ventured lower to her neck. She mimicked the gesture by settling into the crook of his neck, lips hovering over his carotid pulse and then... nothing. She hugged him like one of those throw pillows from his sofa and her leg swung over his hip, further trapping him into place. Her breathing slowed down until he knew he was fucked, and not in the way that he hoped. 

"This isn't fair, Rey. You started this," he said to her passed out body, peacefully asleep. She shifted slightly, knee rubbing against his hard erection. "I can't finish."


	11. Kiss Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Varying degrees of citrus ahead. I listened to so much bloody Ed Sheeran while writing this chapter, hence the title. Also, I apologize in advance for the cliffhanger (please don't hate me).

High heels clicked against the laundromat's checkered tile floor, a sound that should have acted as a mating call to the typical male, but Ben Solo's attention did not stray from the page of _Celestial Conflicts_ that he was reading. Racking his brain for ideas on how to end the story, he ignored the noise that grew louder as it approached. It ticked away like a countdown until the black heels, not skyscraper high but sharp enough to do damage, finally stopped right in front of him. 

"Where the hell have you been?! I swear, I was going to scale that wall again and break in if you weren't here."

His downcast eyes travelled from paper to tiles, slowly moving upwards to take in the sight of bare slim ankles and toned calves under tight leggings. Moving past the white tunic that flattered her modest hips and the grey jacket that hid her small bust, he reached her hazel eyes that fiercely stared him down and demanded for an answer. He gave her body another once over, then chose to stare at those legs. This girl was going to be the death of him.

"I just want my boots back," Rey said in a softer tone. "I've been ringing at your door for the past two days, but _someone_ decided not to be home."

He finally looked up, managing to steel his expression. "The shoot's been busy."

She took a seat on the vacant plastic chair next to him, and he watched her restless feet rock back on her heels. "So... did you also leave that morning, to rush to work?"

"No," he confessed a little too readily, and her cute feet stopped moving. He rushed to explain. "I wanted to save you the embarrassment in case you woke up without any recollection of the night. Perhaps I was also saving my neck, considering how murderous you looked the last time, or rather first time, I saw you in bed."

She punched him lightly on the arm. It didn't hurt, but Ben rubbed the spot on instinct. "You fuckin' roofied me that time, of course I'd want to murder you. This time was different." She got up and walked towards the laundry machines, suddenly very interested in the hypnotic spin of colours. "I remember everything."

They shared very brief but firm eye contact, before dryer number four beeped and diverted their attention. He walked past her, close enough for his thick woolen sweater to brush against the cotton twill of her jacket, a subtle hint of his cologne left in its wake.

Rey watched him haphazardly shove the clothes in his duffel bag, working a little faster than usual...

 

**

The moment he opened the door to his apartment, she was swung onto the wall, caged between strong arms and towering height. "You remember everything?" he growled into her ear. His voice was so low, a deep rumble that she could practically feel reverberating in her own chest. "So you did that all on purpose." 

"Not exactly," she managed to reply, despite the extremely distracting kisses that he planted on the side of her neck. Those full moist lips could get her drunk, or addicted, if she wasn't careful. "I went with the flow. You make it sound like flirting is a crime."

He looked up, a boyish smirk gracing his face, and dark eyes twinkling even in the darkness of the hallway entrance. "You invited me into your bed, undressed me, kissed me, and then left me hard and hanging. If that's your definition of flirting, it _is_ a crime, sweetheart." 

Rey tried to ignore the large palm that settled along her jawline, the pad of his thumb caressing her cheek in slow, intimidating strokes. She took a deep breath, which immediately proved to be a mistake, as the fragrance of his hair and his distinct scent assaulted her senses with a tingling jolt that pierced her heart, and travelled down below. There was something about Kylo Ren or Ben Solo, whoever he was in this moment, that ignited a fervent desire to fight and _win_. Before he could exert any more dominance, Rey grabbed him by the nape, fingers raking up into his scalp to clutch a fistful of black silken curls.

"I guess I should be punished," she said playfully, reigning in the beast with a sharp tug. Guiding his lips to hers, she kissed him deeply and he practically purred in response like an obedient pet. 

They migrated from hallway to living room, a trail of shoes and jackets left behind. Bumping into a side table, the antique lamp with its excessive beading rattled loudly and Rey instinctively reached out to steady it, but Ben grabbed her outstretched arm to fling her onto the couch. He hovered over her, consuming her vision as she stared into those intense eyes, less dark and more glassy brown, framed by freckled skin that showed both youth and age. The lamp's safety was left completely forgotten.

He backed off suddenly, body stretching to full height as he took off his shirt. Sunlight from the partially-drawn blackout curtains illuminated his figure like a fuckin' chiaroscuro painting, accentuating his abs and making him more shredded than he actually was. Rey swallowed hard, absolutely transfixed by this fine sculpture. Unbuckling his belt, he pulled down his pants and socks in one go, leaving him only in black boxer-briefs that revealed his massive arousal. 

"Like what you see?" He chuckled, deep reverberations once again felt in her chest. He kneeled in front of her. "I'm going to undress you now." 

His statement was firm, but he still waited for her permission. When she didn't protest, he reached under her tunic and hooked the waistband of her leggings with long fingers that dug into toned muscle. She bucked up her hips, allowing him to peel off the fabric and unravel the delicacy beneath. It was weird how one millimeter of textile, a mere criss-cross of fibre threads, could make all the difference between modesty and nudity. Even though the form-fitting spandex left no mysteries in terms of shape, he could never anticipate the texture and sight and implication of her bare skin. Impatient, he lifted the edge of her tunic to see more, and she cooperated by raising her arms as he pulled it over her head. 

Rey had callused hands from repeated physical work, and shoulders with rough patches from days under the sun, but the surface of her inner thigh remained baby-smooth, delicate, seemingly untouched. The sandy-coloured undergarments, once thought to be owned by a teenager, looked devilishly enticing against her uneven tanned skin, a mix of light and dark, so very indicative of who she was deep down. The areas open for the world to see, the ones exposed to the sun's kiss and the public eye, were tough and resilient like the girl he first met in the bar, who continued to challenge him at every turn. The areas however kept in darkness, hidden from view and smaller in comparison, were soft and sensitive like the lonely girl who cried on him and kissed him for the first time. His large hands savoured the feeling of that hidden vulnerability. Everywhere he touched, he also sampled with his lips, a suckle and nibble, here and there, until it would likely leave behind purple spots that she couldn't excuse as mosquito bites in the dead of winter.

His eager fingertips fiddled with the band of her bra and panties, but she did not give him the satisfaction of removing her last vestige of modesty. Reaching behind to unhook her bra, she watched his gaze for any sign of disappointment, not that her small breast should come as any surprise. His expression made her giddy, as he resembled a teenager seeing porn for the first time, completely attentive and at her mercy. If this was how sex could be, like a fun game of tug-of-war, maybe she would play more often. 

She stood up and he took one step back to broaden his view. Her thumbs slid between waistband and hip bones, to slip off her panties and let them drop to the floor. Grabbing him by the shoulders, she tip-toed for another kiss, then guided his stiff body back onto the couch where she promptly straddled him. 

Her bare groin pressed into his hard erection, only mere threads of thin black fabric keeping them apart. Hips rolling to and fro, she grinded into him to stimulate her clit and tease the shit out of this tamed beast. He breathed heavily into the valley of her chest, big nose and rough stubble prickling her skin, each exhale warming her already hot body. She rubbed herself against him until the moisture between her swollen folds soaked into his underwear, until she knew that the fabric had to go, and until... 

Something felt completely off. A pressure seemed to burst behind the thin barrier. Eyes closed, a very deep exhale, the swell began to recede.

"Did you just..." 

For the first time in his thirty-one years of life, Ben Solo prematurely blew his load. 

He looked more shocked than her. Even though it was his own body and he could feel the uncomfortable viscosity trapped between fabric and flesh, he reached down to cup his groin and confirm just how limp the appendage had become. "This can't be... How, _why_ —"

Rey blinked. And then she laughed, wholeheartedly, with her mouth so wide that he could see her tonsils. She detached herself from his lap, and he made no move to stop her due to the stickiness that apparently glued him into place. When she bent over to pick up her clothes, she spotted her boots under the coffee table and took a moment to absorb the bigger picture now that the cloud of lust had dissipated. Surrounded by pages of _Celestial Conflicts_ strewn over every surface, and loose leaf pages with blue ink crumpled into balls like pieces of hail after a storm, she got dressed among this unfinished project. The setting felt so fitting that it made her smile.

"Give me ten minutes, no maybe even five." His voice was shaky and slightly higher in pitch. "I swear, my stamina is unrivalled. This was a miscalculated error, a mishap. It will never happen again." 

"Ben, I don't doubt your _stamina_ , but I think it's for the best. I only planned on picking up my boots. My friends are probably waiting for me at home." 

Fully clothed and ready to go, she retrieved her discarded heels in the hallway entrance and looked back at his dejected figure, still beautifully sculpted even with his slouched pose. Dropping the shoes, she quickly returned to his side, took hold of his big ears like two bar handles, and kissed him on the lips. "We'll do this again. There's no rush."

He did not respond, not even when her hand paused on the doorknob and she left his apartment. 

Her boots stepped soundlessly across white tiles, such a relief after two days of high heels, while her face beamed with elation. Waiting for the elevator, his door suddenly burst open. "Rey!" he yelled across the echoing hall, with alarming panic. "If your boss at the Waterfront Estate asks you to work next weekend, you must decline." 

His serious tone wiped the smile from her face. "Why?" 

"We are...shooting a scene."

 

\------  
***

He told her not to come, so why the fuck was she here.

Standing in the corner with her arms crossed, the grande master bedroom that was famous for its spacious interior however appeared extremely small, claustrophobic, as if the distance between her and him were mere inches instead of feet. Light from the bay windows warmed the space with the characteristic orange hue of dusk, but in reality, it was faked by filters and lamps from the tech team since they were filming late at night, well past the hours open to the public.

Kylo Ren ploughed through his lines like a machine, never faltering despite the suffocating distraction of hazel eyes that stung harder than physical pain. By some miracle, he successfully completed the dialogue portion of the scene, but the real challenge remained ahead. 

"Alright. We're right at the finish line! One more scene and it's a wrap," said the director with commendable enthusiasm. He gave more direction to the crew, and then turned to Ren and the beautiful female co-star. "Now, as previously discussed, I want this next part to be organic. Go with the flow and have fun. Don't worry about the camera, we'll catch the necessary."

Action was called and the scene commenced. 

It started with one growl of a line by Kylo Ren, followed by rough handling as he grabbed his co-star and tossed her onto the opulent four-poster bed. Blonde hair fanned out on red sheets, ruffles of white dress were ripped off to expose long legs, big breast, silky smooth complexion. Amidst the flurry, he also shed his clothes until he was left stark naked, fully erect, with that monstrous cock Rey only experienced through a barrier of fabric and only vaguely remembered on screen. The woman took him whole, sucking him off with ease despite her small jaw and his inhuman size. His hand rested on her head and he stroked her hair, gently, intimately. She finally gasped for breath, removing the slick cock that remained rock hard, fully functional, and ready for more. He pushed her back onto the soft mattress, pulled her long legs up, and dived his nose in between. Rey's crossed arms slowly dropped to her sides, fists progressively clenching harder as time elapsed.

"Cut!" the director announced, and they stopped, immediately sitting up as if nothing had transpired. "Beautiful job. We really felt the passion, the spontaneity. Now let's try it again, this time, a little slower."

Rey watched them repeat the scene, five times, different variations. His dick never missed a beat.

The world of cinema, with its disjointed construction, made it difficult to picture the finished product, but Rey couldn't care less about puzzling the pieces and making sense of the story. All she currently saw was his hard erection, his large hand caressing blonde hair, his big nose between slim thighs with perfect skin. Too consumed in her own thoughts, she didn't hear the director officially call it a wrap. Only when the crew started to move out, thanking her on their way out the door, she finally snapped back to reality.

The tall figure dressed all in black approached her, and she stared at his groin, refusing to give him the eye contact that he was trying to engage. There was no bulge in his pants and she had no idea when he took care of business, or how. 

Before giving him the chance to speak, she looked up and flashed a professional smile. "Wonderful performance, _Kylo Ren_. Your stamina is truly unrivalled. I look forward to the rest of the film."

She turned around and dashed out the door, not caring that her boss probably expected her to stay and help close up the house. Ben followed her, keeping a generous distance out of consideration or maybe for his safety. "Rey, hang on."

Her pace picked up, on the verge of a sprint. If a bystander were witnessing the pursuit, they would have surely called the cops, but the dark streets remained deserted at this hour, pindrop silent, except for hurried footsteps and the rich timbre of his voice. "Why did you come?" He sounded angry, and not the least remorseful which pissed Rey off even more. Luckily they reached her street and she would soon be able to hide within the safety of her apartment. 

"I told you not to come," he continued, watching her fumble with her keys. "You know this is what I do. Why are you acting so jealous?"

"I am not jealous."

"Then why are you so angry?!"

"I am not angry!" she shouted, completely proving his point. Jamming her keys in the lock, she yanked the front door open and didn't look back to see him on her tail. Up the flights of stairs, down the hallway, and into her apartment, she was simply too tired to yell back and fight him off.

He hugged her from behind, that firm chest once so comforting now felt alien. "Let go," she commanded, but he did not comply. Her body wriggled in an attempt to shake him off, but his large frame and strong arms caged her into place.

"I was thinking of you. I'm always thinking of you."

"And that's supposed to make me feel better?" She tried once more to break his hold, but that iron grip did not budge. Instead, she relaxed her shoulders and said with more authority, "Kylo Ren. You will remove your filthy fuckin' hands from me, and get in the shower."

His hold slackened and he did as he was told, knowing exactly where to go. The small bathroom did not dredge up nostalgia or any type of sentiment; it looked identical to his memories, still cramped and surprisingly free of mould, but its new scent, along with the traces of her hair in the drain, reminded him that this was now her space. 

Scalding hot water soothed his muscles while he scrubbed every surface and crevice of his body, using her soap and shampoo, like it would somehow renew the area and achieve a clean slate. Today's scene had not even been his worst. It did not even chart on his scale of raunch. There was so much more he could have done, that he has done, that even sickened him to the point of rendering his skin raw from exfoliation. 

When the condensation was too much for the crappy fan to handle, he shut off the tap and exited the bathroom. Walking out with her towel around his hips, hair dripping wet and skin shining with moisture, he observed her sitting on the bed, wearing his teen clothes. "Anything else?" he asked.

"Yes." Her gaze held no emotion, just authority. "Now you're going to fuck me."


	12. Back to Basics

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh crap, sorry for the 6-months long hiatus. I was supposed to post this chapter last year in November, but then that version was kind of depressing so I ended up scrapping the whole thing (especially since it was around the time of the US election results, and morale felt pretty low.) Anyway, hopefully I can keep up the momentum and finish this story in the upcoming months!

Ben’s hot skin glistening with moisture from the steamy shower quickly turned into a chill. Perhaps it was her cold eyes that triggered goosebumps to emerge, or maybe (most probably) it was the cruel air that took no consideration for his state of undress, especially with the draft that seeped from the crappy single-pane windows across the room. It kept him frozen in place, allowing him to assess the situation instead of jumping the gun, or bones in this case.

While his mind worked on overdrive with thoughts travelling at near lightspeed, time however seemed to function inversely: at the tip of his sopping strands of hair, beads of water formed in slow motion. As the droplets broke off from the wet locks and began their descent to the ground, they suddenly froze in mid-air, at the same moment Ben narrowed down his choices. 

Option A: Obey the command and fuck her. 

She was asking for it, commanding it, and he could tell that she wasn't wearing a bra underneath that shirt. It would be the natural reaction to the situation, and something that Kylo Ren had no trouble doing for the past decade... but he also knew that she was livid and hurt, which therefore meant an extremely unpredictable outcome. It could potentially end their bizarre relationship and throw him ten steps back, or even entirely off-course. Sex often changed things, for better or for worse.

This left Option B: Refuse the command and talk it out.

It would be difficult, but he could somehow diffuse the situation with his words. He was pretty good at questioning and planting doubt into the minds of others. It would be the smart thing to do, especially since she seemed to be acting out on jealousy or insecurity, and it just didn't feel right for their first time. Ben Solo had no trouble running away... 

A or B. Which should he choose. What should he do. If it were a multiple choice question on a test, he wouldn't hesitate since he always knew the answers; this girl was however an enigma that could not be solved. It drove him crazy.

The freeze-frame pause elapsed, the water droplets splashed to the floor, and time resumed to normalcy. Caught on the spot without any more delays, he stood transfixed by her glazed hazel eyes. Ben impulsively dropped the towel from his hips. 

A white cloth may symbolise defeat, but the fight was long from over. Reaching for his limp appendage, he unabashedly started to stroke himself. Her face did not scrunch up in horror like it would have months prior; she instead watched intently, with the occasional quiver of her brow, and he could not read her subtle reactions at all. He usually read everyone's mind. But never hers. 

Once sufficiently erect, he felt the confidence also return. "Shall we do this bareback?" he asked cheekily.

Her face flushed, of which he only caught a short glimpse since she immediately escaped from his line of vision as she bolted to the bathroom. Standing still, he listened to her rummage through drawers and cabinets; the hectic sound eventually subsided, and he felt her come close. Slipping the condom into his hand, she did not linger in his presence, and instead headed for the lightswitch on the wall to shut off the ceiling lamp. While he fitted on the condom, he watched her undress in the darkness that did not impair his sight. Both ready, he finally approached her seated figure on the bed, the mattress dipping as he sat next to her. 

He leaned in for a kiss on her lips, but was met with the back of her hand and a slight push away from her face. "No need to be sentimental, Kylo Ren, " she said harshly. "I told you to fuck me."

He ignored the pinch at his heart. Without further hesitation, his big hand cupped her groin and his long deft fingers massaged her clit. She was already warm, but quickly grew even more wet. She let out a moan that broke her cold facade, and instantly clamped down her mouth to sober her expression. The bed creaked as he guided her body into a lying position, and climbed over her tiny frame.

In the darkness, he could not only see her every curve and pretty little nipples, but also the direction of her gaze which was clearly focused on what lay between his legs. Words apparently tumbled out before she could stop herself. "It's not going to fit."

He chuckled. "Sweetheart, two of these can fit in an asshole. It'll fit." He lowered himself into her, his hard cock brushing against her clit. The tip settled into place and he pushed forward, but immediately was met with resistance. It really was blocked. Thumbs massaging her hip bones, he gently said, "Rey, relax."

"I _am_ relaxed."

There was clearly a barrier, and as much as he would love the thought of being her first, he knew damn well that she has been with 2187. "You're really tensed, but we can fit anything with lube. Do you have any?"

"Umm, no? Unless your fifteen-year-old self has some hidden somewhere? Though it's probably expired. Does that stuff expire?"

"No, to your first question, and yes, to the second." Ben dislodged from her and scooted back to create a little distance. "But we don't need it. There's another way."

He took hold of her ankles and lifted up her legs, spread eagle. With his nose diving in between, he couldn't see the appalled look on her face, nor did he realise that the angle was too similar to the scene that she had witnessed hours prior. 

"No you fuckin' don't," she snarled, tensing the muscles of her legs and preventing him from drawing any closer.

"Rey. Trust me with this one." He once again attempted to pry her stiff legs apart, but she fought back even harder. "My technique is the best in the industry," he tried to reassure, only to be confronted with more resistance. 

When he tightened the hold around her ankles, Rey's reflexes literally kicked in: with a sharp twist, she broke from his grip and her leg instinctively swung forward to kick him square in the solar plexus. Doubling back and falling off the bed in a loud thump, he could not even howl or curse from the pain since he was desperately gasping for air.

"Shit, shit, shit. Ben!" she panicked, emotion flooding back into her voice. Despite the pain, the sound of her concern comforted him. The bedside lamp was switched on, and she rushed to his side. "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to... It's just that— in the end, I can't do this. "

The kick might have been deadly accurate, but it had thankfully not been full force. His nerves soon calmed, the pain subsided, and he managed to regain his breath. "Don't worry about it. This is fine." 

Silence followed, and Rey glanced at his member that was surprisingly still erect. "So... What should we do now?"

His gaze followed her gaze. "I'll take care of this," he said, getting up and momentarily eyeing the bathroom before turning his attention back to Rey. "Actually, is it okay if I look at you, from a distance?" 

She didn't question and simply nodded, then took a seat on the bed just like before. He stood up and walked several feet away to create their separate personal spaces, linked only by their line of sight.

Slipping off the condom, the hand that was gripped only moments ago onto her ankle instead clutched onto his hard cock and jerked it, to and fro, while she shyly watched him from a distance. Inadvertently, her hand also ventured down below, slender fingers sliding to her groin. Ben's arousal seemed to flurry at her actions, and his strokes became more fervent. Just as he was about to climax, he managed to grab a pair of his teenage boxers from the floor. He came hard into them, while Rey didn't miss a beat and continued to masturbate. 

With slight apprehension, Ben entered her personal space. He sat next to her, then slowly ushered her into his lap to hold her from behind. He kissed those sunburnt shoulders and neck, all the while she touched herself. Whispering apologies into her ear, the repetition of words sounded like a mantra. 

From the strong arms that protectively enlaced her, to the rumbling sound of his husky voice, his scent, his presence, and most of all, his genuine honesty allowed her body to fully relax. Perhaps it was the bottling up of emotions and its subsequent release, or the way he touched her back, leaving trails of kisses and apologies... Coupled with the stimulation of her ministrations, she sunk into Ben's firm chest and let the ride take over. 

For the first time in her twenty-one years of life, Rey experienced an orgasm.

"Last week... I said there was no rush," she finally said, a little out of breath from the high. "And then here I am, forcing things to happen when it's all wrong." Her hand reached for the bedside lamp and they were engulfed once more in the darkness. "But I guess it didn't turn out so bad in the end."

Ben didn't bother to respond, and just hugged her tightly. Once more, in that bed too small, he fell asleep intertwined with her limbs.

 

  
**

In the morning, Rey had somehow ended up big spoon, holding him from behind with one arm draped over his broad form, and the other gone numb from being lodged under his weight. With the faint light filtering though thin drapes, she stared at his freckled skin that mimicked a starry night's sky, as if he held the universe on his back. She traced the little dots, her finger moving like a ship that travelled from planet to planet. He stirred from the ticklish sensation.

"How did you get into porn?" she abruptly asked.

"Good morning to you too," he groggily mumbled. "Do I really have to answer that?" 

When Rey kept silent, he turned around to face her and was met with those soft eyes that melted all defense. He sighed. "It's a blur. Or more like a mess." Ben looked to the ceiling as he sincerely tried to recall his life from nearly a decade ago. "I think the work just gradually fell into place... probably from the drugs and peer pressure. Cocaine does shit to you... it's this force that takes over your life. I guess the simple answer would be, I was taken in by _snoke_."

She nodded and then followed up. "How did you know my name?"

"What, is this an interrogation?" 

"Just answer the question, Ben."

"I..." he hesitated, or maybe tried to build suspense since she looked at him eagerly. "I must have seen your work." 

It took her a moment to register his words, and when they clicked, she punched him on the arm. "Be serious," she said, then soothed the area by planting a light kiss in its wake. Of course, Ben was going to be serious after that. 

"It was intuition. At first, I thought you might be named after a flower... But then your eyes... it reminded me of someone, a long time ago, before I got into porn. There was this little girl who I used to frequently see, standing on the other side of this wire fence at one of my random part time jobs. I worked as a mascot over at the amusement park in Niima. One day, she came with her class and I learned her name." 

Rey stifled a laugh. It came out of her nose as a snort.

"Don't get the wrong idea, it's not like I was in love with that kid! She just made an impression on me. The day she visited, she ended up giving me this stare that just made me feel like I was worth a damn. Those were tough times, and even if it came from some little kid, the validation meant the world to me. I'll certainly never forget the memory because it was also the day I nearly got run over by a motorbike when I rushed across the street outside the park, still in that ridiculous costume, just because I wanted to thank her... Although I never did since the motorbike got into an accident." 

Ben looked into her clear hazel eyes. "By chance, are you that girl?"

She was eerily silent, and Ben's muscles tensed at the possible implication of his intuition being right. But Rey burst out in laughter. Full and deafening, exposing the tonsils at the back of her throat and her bright beautiful teeth.

He averted his gaze to stare at the peeling paint on the ceiling, slightly miffed by being wrong and mocked. "Of course I was only joking. I didn't actually think that the kid was you. Well, whatever it was, it made me fascinated by brunettes with intense hazel eyes and it eventually brought me to you."

Her laughter slowly subsided and she cuddled up close. "How lucky."


	13. Regression and Progression

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: This chapter contains a deliberately vulgar porn scene. It's marked as xxx. Also, there's finally reylo smut, but mild hints of dom!rey and sort-of rough sex. Sorry if it's not your jam! I had envisioned this scene since I first started writing this fic, so it was impossible to change.

Crystal beads hanging from the gaudy Victorian-style table lamp twinkled like flickering starlight when the phone beneath it lit up, vibrated, and rang to an empty apartment. This subtle light show reoccurred several times until a certain tall individual snuffed it out by dumping a thick stack of papers onto the black screen, either on purpose or in a moment of disarray from the frenzy of creative writing. While the phone could still assert its presence by vibrating under the mound, the battery however could not survive without charge. It eventually died and was left dead for days, maybe even weeks, he was not sure. Time had become difficult to track with that distracting Rey in his life. 

The low-tech lifestyle of Takodana might have felt liberating, but there was one piece of tech that remained sorely missed: the high-end security into his apartment building. Ben Solo was therefore hardly surprised to see the strikingly tall blonde trespasser standing at his doorstep.

"What are you doing here?" he asked neutrally, the lack of inflection in his voice mirroring his deadpan expression.

"Hello to you too, Kylo Ren," Phasma responded with equal level, despite the deep frown between her brows. "I hate being messenger woman, but what can I do, I'm a pawn in all of this too. Our Supreme Leader wants to talk to you."

"I'll give him a call." Ben tried to push past her to get to the door, but she did not budge an inch.

"Kylo Ren." She handed him her phone. "He wants to speak with you now."

Ben made brief eye contact, and then took the phone, slowly bringing it to his ear while trying to maintain his composure. "Yes, Leader..." 

Phasma stood around, tapping her high-heeled boot in agitation. She was not purposefully trying to eavesdrop, and even if she was, the conversation seemed to flow one-sidedly as she could only hear Ren mutter an occasional grunt of admission. In fact, it could hardly be considered a conversation at all; it was definitely a lecture or a scolding. Phasma did not pry when he hung up and handed her back the phone. She simply turned around to leave, the loud clack of her steely high heels echoing in the hallway, never looking back to witness his sullen face completely drained of colour. 

Ben entered his apartment, dropping those clunky keys to the ground. He did not make it past the entryway before also slumping to the floor, his fingers lacing up into his scalp to pull at the roots of his black hair. 

_Kylo Ren. I decided to leave you to it. Let you realise through this project, this little endeavour._

_… You are nothing without this industry…_

_...Did you think that this time would be different? The bonds you make will only tighten, like a noose..._

_...How are you feeling, being a slave to their whims, to their expectations?_

The darkness that he had kept at bay for months seemed to come back like a shadow demon with its long spindly arms, embracing him until no light could enter. And he did not fight back. Ben let it swallow him whole. 

 

\------  
***

"Ben, open up!" Rey's three buns of hair bobbed as she frantically banged on the door. "I know you're in there." 

Her hand began to go numb from the repeated impact of her fist against the hard wood, which did not seem to have any effect at breaking through the barrier. Still with no answer, she sighed heavily and then shouted, "Fine! I'll scale that damn wall outside and break in from the balcony again. If I fall, it's your fault for not answering this stupid door!"

Again, she was left with silence. She gave the door one last kick and turned her heel, but before taking a full step forward, the door cracked open by a fraction with the security chain still left in place. The sliver of space nevertheless revealed the other side, where a shadow of a tall man seemed to lurk. She caught a glimpse of cold glazed eyes which took her aback. 

"What do you want," he grumbled.

"We haven't seen each other in three weeks and _this_ is how you greet me?" Rey would have normally punched or kicked him, but the barrier of the door blocked her instinctive reaction. "I don't have your number, you don’t have mine... I waited at our usual spots but you never showed. Where the hell have you been?"

"It's none of your business."

"None of my business?! Just what the fuck am I to you?" she shrieked and punched the door, which would surely leave a nasty bruise. 

It was surprising that he did not simply shut the door, instead leaving that fraction of space open. But still, he did not respond and the very thin wall that kept Rey’s composure in check completely crumbled. "You know what, Ben. Fuck you. Why am I even surprised that this is how you treat people. You've been back in Takodana for what, nearly a year? And yet, you haven’t seen your parents even though they're practically a doorstep away."

"Don't bring my parents into this," he growled. There was real anger there, like there always was when they were mentioned.

Rey pressed on. "No, I _am_ going to bring them into this. These past weeks, I was thinking of them... especially Leia, and how she must have felt when you left her. It hurts, Ben. Disappearing on us like that without a word. It fuckin' hurts."

"Then stop caring."

He shut the door and slinked to the floor, ignoring the muffled banging and cussing that ensued. When the noise subsided, he stared at the blackout curtains across the room which hid the balcony door. Would she try to break in from there? 

The mechanical clock on the wall ticked and ticked until it moved past a quadrant. Of course she wouldn’t. Why would she risk her safety to see such a pathetic man as himself... 

The phone that had been recently neglected was picked back up with shaky hands. Ben didn’t wait for a full charge before dialing a number that was no longer in his log, but that he remembered all too well from sheer muscle memory, from the days of payphones. After one ring, the caller answered.

"Need any extras for a gig?" Ren asked.

 

xxx

The poorly-lit rundown highway motel room reeked of sweat and illicit activity. 

Kylo Ren had not done amateur in years, and he almost forgot how disorganized and sloppy it could get. There was a dick in his mouth and one up his ass. Whoever was fucking him from behind hardly had any experience and he quickly grew tired of the shitty performance. Bucking the asshole off his asshole, he also spat out the dick from his mouth to search for a ho to fuck over instead. It didn’t take long to find a pussy. He fucked it hard then grabbed a tit, either from the girl that he was fucking or from someone else nearby, he had no idea. Regardless of the owner, it felt so big and squishy that he almost went flaccid in that instant. He needed it firm and tangible, _real_ … like her.

Ben pulled out, as he began to go limp. He looked around the room, at the disgusting display of raunch and debauchery, and his skin began to crawl. What the _hell_ was he doing?

xxx

 

His long leg kicked open the bathroom door, and then strode into the shower stall, still fully clothed. Ben furiously stripped as the cold water hit his face. He cranked the knob to maximum heat, until it rose to scalding temperature that steamed up the small room in little time. The burning drops pelted from the showerhead like an assault, like bullets that he wished were real to put him out of his misery.

This was all Rey's fault. 

Everything had changed because of her, and her stupid beautiful hazel eyes, that annoyingly rare laugh and the radiant smile which blinded him, bound him, tied him to a leash like some fuckin' tamed pup yearning for her approval, her affection. 

No amount of scrubbing could wash away the dirty feeling inside. There was only one way to cleanse it.

 

**

To a normal passerby, the red-brick Victorian-style apartment complex could not possibly possess a side entrance since the neighboring buildings were too closely packed, and any space between was filled with overgrown, unruly foliage. Ben however knew that it existed and how to get in, having done it one too many times in the past. Jumping a fence from the street in back, he trespassed several neighbors’ backyards and made his way to destination, fighting off tentacle-like branches and thick shrubbery as he slid into the narrow gap. He was a little disappointed to find the side door left unlocked; it would have otherwise given him the excuse to smash the flimsy janitor window and climb in from there instead. 

Taking two steps at a time up the staircase, his intense focus did not allow nostalgia to overcome his senses. And when he found himself face to face with Rey, her stunned eyes giving him a concerned frantic onceover, he did not dawdle in the past nor think of the consequences. He simply pounced.

The door closed shut in a deafening bang as their lips collided, violently, crudely. He kissed her with desperation down the hall, into the kitchen, until she was backed into the table where she had clearly been studying. Reaching for the neckband of her t-shirt, he grabbed fistfuls of the thin worn fabric that should have died ages ago, and ripped it off cleanly to reveal her modest chest clad in a cream-coloured bra. He felt no guilt tearing the shirt apart since it belonged to him anyway. 

Rey did not flinch at being stripped. She stared at him with cold hard determination, and exuded her confidence by calmly leaning back into the table with outstretched arms, her small chest puffing up in an enticing manner. A normal man would have been turned on by the erotic invitation, but instead, Ben got triggered.

"Why aren't you resisting?!" he shouted. "Fight me! I ignored you and treated you like shit. You're supposed to hate me! How much more damage do I need to inflict for you to have enough, to kick me to the curb, and want nothing to do with me?”

“Ben, you’re so fuckin’ selfish!” she shouted in response. Her back straightened up and she grabbed his collar to pull him closer. “ _You_ don’t get to decide what I do or how I feel.” 

Before he could bark back, she smashed her lips onto his to shut him up. The intense kiss only lasted a brief moment until her focus shifted to his belt. She undid the metal buckle with the dexterity of a mechanic, then promptly pulled down his pants and underwear in one go. On her knees, she looked up at his horrified face as she stuck his dick in her mouth. He instinctively grabbed her hair in an attempt to pull her off, but her free hand matched his speed and gripped his wrist to control him into place. She grazed her teeth against his shaft, warning him that she was in charge of his most sensitive part. One wrong move and she would retaliate. He released her hair.

Rey always assumed that the whole thing could not fit in her mouth, but she was a fighter at heart and refused to bow down to failure: she managed to go deep throat. Instead of sucking him dry, she left him painfully erect, and then guided him to the ground with a tug at his arm. He complied, obviously dazed or amazed at what had just happened. While he lay on the hard wood floor, she stood up to remove her pants, revealing not white cotton panties but his spaceship-patterned teenage boxers. She slipped those off too, along with her bra that was last to go. Stark naked, he reached for the temptation, but she swatted his hand away to stop him. "Stay down," she commanded.

He could not defy her authority, like a knight to his queen. Her body slowly descended into him. 

It took some time to get the angle right, but at least she was relaxed and wet enough for it to slide in, albeit the tight fit. She moved into him gently, perhaps a bit apprehensively as she adjusted herself to the feeling, and she ignored her partner’s obvious signs of growing impatience. When Ben apparently had enough and sharply bucked up his hips into her, she slapped him full on the face. He looked at her, not angry or hurt, just in utter shock. She glared back. "You want to fight?"

He clenched his teeth and did not protest further. 

Her pace picked up speed and intensity as she began to fuel it with her pent-up frustration, anger, longing, not only of the past three weeks, but of the past year. She rode out the feelings as she rode him like an animal. At every thrust, she released a portion of her stress, clearing her mind. Her pleasure built to greater and greater heights until the momentum finally peaked, and she climaxed. Those already tight walls contracted around him, but he did not come. Instead, he watched her pretty face relax after the high, and he swore it was all worth it even though he had not finished.

That angelic face however suddenly vanished as she looked down at him with a devilish smirk. Her thighs made a subtle movement, indicating that she was about to pull out, but he immediately grabbed her ass to prevent her from slipping away. "Don't you dare," he growled.

"I think we're done here."

"You think you can play with fire and not get burned? I'm not letting you go just yet. I'm going to make you hate me."

In one swift motion, Rey was flipped over as Ben turned the tables on her. He wasn’t about to subject her beautiful back to the cold hard floor, so he picked her up, holding her ass firmly in place to remain locked into one another. He was however not going to show her any mercy: he wanted her to feel every inch of him, and to mark his territory on every fuckin’ inch of this apartment. 

The kitchen table gave her the most concern as her study notes went flying when he cleared it off with one large swipe. Rey’s thoughts about paper reorganization were quickly replaced with the feeling of him inside her, and the dizzying pleasure that followed. It was a miracle that the legs of the table did not give way from the sheer force of his thrusts, but then again, furniture of the past were made to last. Her rustic armchair, a nice find from a dumpster dive, did not share the same fate; its back legs snapped, but before toppling over, Ben moved to the wall.

He rammed her against the bookcase which shook intensely, causing a few light items to fall and smash to the ground. Noticing her look of disapproval, he then moved to the most normal of places, that creaky old Ben Solo bed. Perhaps he could redeem himself from the blue balls experience. 

His fervor did not completely blind him, and he watched her reactions as he pounded into her, adjusting the angle and strength until he knew that it was hitting her sweet spot. Target locked on, he gave her everything he had. Her body writhed, moaning and grabbing fistfuls of his black hair. She climaxed again, and Ben came into her, hard. 

Completely depleted, they stayed connected for a little while longer, heartbeat and breath in tandem.

He was first to break the silence. "What the _hell_ was that?"

"No idea," she answered between heavy panting. "But I guess that's one mystery solved.”

“Mystery?”

“I'm definitely not asexual after that." She turned to look into his dark, deep eyes. "Or maybe I'm only into you, Ben."

He hid his flushed face by holding her close, shoving her against his hard chest so that she could not witness the smile from big ear to ear. He kissed the top of her head.

"Rey,” he purred. “I believe one time is hardly an adequate sample size, especially with all the potential error… you know, given the circumstance, the surprise you must have felt, the pent-up emotions. I think we need to repeat the experiment, to accurately determine the validity of your answer."

"Oh, _sure_. But _that_ will need some time to recharge," she said cheekily, signaling his groin that had receded in size. 

"Give me five minutes."

"How is that physically possible? You're so fuckin' arrogant."

Apparently Ben Solo truly possessed raw talent, some sort of force from within that allowed him to defy the impossible. It wasn’t exactly five minutes but he distracted her with an in-depth conversation about the fourth dimension, and performed just as well the second time around. The third attempt had also been successful, but the fourth in the wee hours of the morning, really pushed his body to the limit. Nevertheless, he proved time and time again that she was not Ace, but simply into Ben.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **About TLJ (don't read if you haven't seen the movie yet!!):**  
> 
> I can't believe how much WE WON. Friggin' canon force bond, skin-to-skin hand touching, shirtless Ren, the thigh grab, the proposal, she-calls-him-BEN!!! I just can't even. Merry Christmas everyone, Merry Christmas!  
> I know I'm writing AU, but I like to draw from the source material and there were other minor tidbits that felt validating. Like, friggin' Snoke-Hefner and BEN'S CALLIGRAPHY SET. But on a more serious note, the whole point of my fic is for Ben and Rey to make one step forward and it revolves around the line "don't let yourself get stuck in the past"... which is essentially, "let the past die"!!  
> Bwahhh, this has totally revived my love for reylo. I was never going to give up on this fic since the ending is pretty much drafted, BUT this has definitely given me a boost of inspiration. <3


End file.
